Also known as Il Sorriso Del Ragno, The Spider’s Smile and Sweet Blue Sweat, this is the only movie directed by Massimo Castellani, who was assistant director on Bloody Pit of Horror and Perversion Story. It was released on VHS by Magnum Video back in the day.

Tony Driscoll (Thomas Hunter) is an insurance man investigating a $5 million jewelry robbery in which he becomes the main suspect. That’s because a woman he hooks up with slips some jewels into his luggage and then gets killed. It features Gabriele Tinti, and while you’d hope it was a full-on giallo, it’s closer to Eurocrime or even a travelogue of Greece.

Elena Nathanail is the femme fatale, and this was produced by Sergio’s brother Luciano. Writers are Italo Gasperini (Scalps, Wrath of God) and Armando Morandi.

When all I have are facts, know that the movie won’t be memorable.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Malpertuis was directed by Harry Kümel (Daughters of Darkness) and was based on the Jean Ray novel of the same name. It was released in the U.S. as The Legend of Doom House, which is not as classy a title, but you know me. I like the sleaze.

Jan (Mathieu Carrière) is a sailor who has decided to leave the sea and return to his childhood home. He’s abducted during his search and wakes up in a mansion called Malpertuis and surrounded by relatives like his sister Nancy (Susan Hampshire), a taxidermist named Lampernisse (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and his occultist uncle Cassavius (Orson Welles), who forces everyone to become Greek gods and never leave under penalty of death.

As for Malpertuis, it could fit into an Italian Gothic horror movie, as it’s a maze of secret rooms, long corridors, and cobwebbed staircases.

Kümel worshipped Welles, wrote the part of Cassius for him, and made sure to get him the money he asked for. As nervous as he was to meet his idol, he was greeted by a drunk and angry Welles on set. That said, they got along, even if no one else in the film did with the legendary director. People had a way of not getting along with Welles, like writer Charles Higham, whose book Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius used a photo of this to show the actor’s decline. Never mind that he was made up to look older than he really was, and on his deathbed.

The Radiance Blu-ray of Malpurtis has a new 4K restoration of the film overseen by director Harry Kümel, along with a new interview with the director. There’s also an archival commentary by Harry and assistant director Françoise Levie, an archival making of documentary, a featurette on Welles, an interview with author and gothic horror expert Jonathan Rigby, archival interviews with Susan Hampshire, Michel Bouquet, Harry Kümel, Jean Ray and John Flanders, Kümel revisiting locations from the film, the Cannes cut of the movie, The Warden of the Tomb (Kümel’s early film based on Franz Kafka’s play) and a trailer. It has a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow, a limited edition 80-page perfect bound booklet featuring new writing by Lucas Balbo, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo, David Flint, Willow Catelyn Maclay and Jonathan Owen and a limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in rigid box and full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings. You can get it from MVD.

Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie tonight at 8:00 PM at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA. You can get tickets here. It’s also playing on January 31 at 7:00 PM at The Sie Film Center in Denver. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

Also known as Ecology of Crime, Chain Reaction, Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve and Blood Bath, Last House on the Left – Part II and New House on the Left, this is the most violent and nihilistic of all of Mario Bava’s films. It started as a story idea so that Bava could work with Laura Betti (Hatchet for the Honeymoon) again, with the original titles of Stench of Flesh and Thus We Do Live to Be Evil, but had a virtual litany of writers get involved, including producer Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni, Sergio Canevari, Dardano Sacchetti (who co-wrote all of Fulci’s best films, like Zombi 2 and House by the Cemetery) and Franco Barberi.

Bava was devoted to the film, and its low budget meant he would also serve as his own cinematographer, often creating innovative tracking shots with a toy wagon and relying on in-camera tricks to make the location seem much more expansive than it was.

There are thirteen murders in the film — many of which are incredibly gory, thanks to the skill of Carlo Rambaldi — as several characters vie to inherit the titular bay. The film divides critics and fans: some see it as pure gore, while others see it as the nuanced films Bava is known for. For example, Christopher Lee went on record saying he found the movie revolting.

It also gave rise to the slasher genre, as every film that follows owes it a debt of gory gratitude. And some owe it plenty more, in particular Friday the 13th Part 2, which copies two of the kills in this film shot-for-shot.

The story is all over the place and has a mix of dark humor and pure meanness at its core, starting with Filippo Dontai strangling his wife, Countess Federica, before being stabbed and killed scant seconds later. His corpse is dragged to the bay, where his murder goes undiscovered as detectives begin their investigation into the death of the Countess.

That’s when we meet Frank (Chris Avram, Enter the Devil), a real estate agent, and his girlfriend Laura, who plot to take over the bay. They were working with Donati to kill his wife and now need his signature, but don’t realize that he is dead.

Meanwhile, four teenagers hear about the murders and break into the mansion. One of them, Brunhilda, skinny dips in the bay until the dead corpse of Donati surfaces and touches her. She screams and runs toward the mansion, only to be killed by an unseen murderer holding a billhook. That killer uses that same weapon to kill her boyfriend, Bobby, then he impales Duke and Denise together with a spear while they’re having sex. Here’s a good lesson that I constantly yell: don’t fuck in the woods, don’t fuck in a haunted house, don’t fuck when a killer is about.

The killer turns out to be the Countess’s illegitimate son, Simon, who is wiping out everyone under Frank’s orders. Renata (Claudine Auger, Thunderball) shows up to throw a wrench in the work, as she’s the Countess’ real daughter. Along with her husband, Albert, she begins to make plans to kill her half-brother.

What follows is a near Grand Guignol of back-and-forth murder: Frank attacks Renata, who turns the tables and stabs him with a knife. Paolo, the entomologist who lives on the estate grounds, sees the killing but is strangled by Albert before he can call the police, and his wife is decapitated with an axe. Laura shows up, but Simon strangles her to death before Albert kills him. Frank shows up again, but Albert takes him out, leaving Renata as the sole heir.

They return home to await being awarded the money, but as they get to the front door, their children shoot them with a shotgun, thinking they are playing with their parents. Bored with the game and how long their parents have been playing dead, the kids run out to play another game, an ending that can be viewed as pure comedy or a sad comment on humanity. Maybe both.

Bay of Blood isn’t the art of past Bava films, but it’s not trash. It’s also been claimed to have been Bava’s favorite film that he directed. And Dario Argento adores the movie so much that he literally stole a print of it from a theater!

Directed by Eloy de la Iglesia, who co-wrote the story with Antonio Fons, this is all about lonely housewife Marta (Carmen Sevilla), left all alone once again when husband Carlos (Fernando Cebrián) goes on a business trip, leaving her with just her cat Fedra. One night, she’s sure that her neighbor, Julia (Patty Shepard), has murdered her husband. Oh, the intrirgue in this apartment building: landlord and artist Ricardo (Dean Selmier) is way into Marta, teenage milkmaid and farmer’s daughter — yes, really — Rosa (Emma Cohen) is into Ricardo, deliveryman Pete (Javier De Campos) is into Julia and Ricardo’s dog is in love with the mystery meat someone is feeding him at night. There’s also a pervert walking around and discreetly taking photos of the women.

Eloy de la Iglesia is a director who may have been known for Cannibal Man, but it was the Severin releases of his films that made him better known in the U.S. I love the tension he’s built with this, all inside a small town apartment building, a place overflowing with need, with secrets and with, well…you’ll see.

You can watch this movie on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. at the Music Box Theater in Chicago (tickets here). I considered flying to Chicago just for the occasion, as this will be shown on an ultra-rare 16mm print. Never released to home video, this is one of my favorite movies. For more information, visit Cinematic Void. 

Marisa Mell is the female George Eastman. No, she doesn’t act like a wide-eyed gigantic maniac in every movie. It’s just that no matter what movie she appears in, just her name being in the credits guarantees that I will watch the film.

Also known as …dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora (…After That, It Kills the Male and Devours It), which is one of the best titles ever.

A wealthy landowner named Don Miguel (Stephen Boyd, who was in Ben-Hur) is haunted by his dead mother and missing wife — who may have been murdered — when he meets a gorgeous runaway named Marta (Mell), who may have killed the man who she was running from.

I haven’t seen any of José Antonio Nieves Conde’s films before, but this movie makes me want to watch every single one of them.

The strange thing is that this movie pretty much became true in a way, as Boyd and Mell fell in love, as they made this and The Great Swindle one on top of the other*. Despite Boyd not wanting anything to do with Mell at first — was the man made of stone? — he eventually fell for her and they married in a gypsy ceremony near Madrid, cutting their wrists and sealing their blood. The couple was so possessed by the mystical and sexual desire they felt for one another that they even went to have it exorcized in another ritual.

Boyd had to run from her, as the relationship physically and mentally exhausted him. As for Mell, she’d tell the Akron Beacon Journal that “We both believe in reincarnation, and we realized we’ve already been lovers in three different lifetimes, and in each one I made him suffer terribly.”

In the same year that all this happened, Mell was also dating Pier Luigi Torri, an aristocratic nightclub owner who fled the country after a cocaine scandal. Arrested in London after it was discovered he had a $300 million dollar gold mine and had also scammed a bank, he somehow escaped his jail cell and ran from the police across rooftops, escaping to America for 18 months. Evidently, Mell dated Diabolik in art and in life.

So let’s talk about the Mell relationship in the film instead of reality. She has come to live with Miguel, who collects insects and has two servants who keep things tidy. She enters his life by claiming that she is on the run for a self-defense murder. Miguel decides to protect her from the police because she looks like his wife Pilar (also played by Mell) who has left him or was killed. He’s also tormented by the death of his sainted mother while she may not be who she says that she is.

Oh yeah — and now Marta is acting as Pillar to throw the police off the scent of the man whom she either wants to marry or destroy.

Marta is a gothic-style giallo but is also dreamlike throughout. There’s a continual obsession with placing Mell in front of mirrors. And for someone who was rarely used outside of her sex appeal in films, she absolutely haunting here. Somehow, Spain put this movie forward for Oscar consideration and if I ran those popcorn fart boring awards, I would have given this every single award.

Sure, this movie rips off Hitchcock, but it also wallows in sin, which is what I demand from the giallo that I come to adore. Somehow, someway, this aired on broadcast TV as part of Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package, along with A Bell from Hell, Death Smiles on a Murderer, Maniac Mansion, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Witches Mountain, The Mummy’s Revenge and The Witch. Man, how did any of those air on regular TV?

*Credit to the Stephen Boyd Fan Page and Marisa Mell: Her Life and Her Work for this information.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the American Cinematheque Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles (tickets here). For more information, visit Cinematic Void. 

Paolo Cavara and Gualtiero Jacopetti (who took all the credit) directed the first shockumentary, Mondo Cane. Following that, they worked on Women of the World before Jacopetti moved on to make increasingly more insane films with Franco Prosperi. Cavara? He went on to make his own films, including this one, which some place amongst the best giallo ever.

A mysterious killer is killing women who were involved with a blackmail scheme, using a needle to paralyze them before he slices their stomachs open, the same way a tarantula kills a wasp. Even worse — the victims are awake and can feel the pain, but are unable to move or scream.

Cavara uses one of the queens of giallo for his first victim, Barbara Bouchet (The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, Don’t Torture a Duckling, Amuck!). Soon, it’s up to Inspector Tellini to solve the case before he or his girlfriend is killed. He’s a totally likable character, rare for a giallo, who mainly argues with his wife, who buys too much furniture while worrying if he’s good enough at what he does. He hits a little too close to home.

There is plenty more eye candy in the film, with Claudine Auger (Domino from Thunderball) and Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me, The Humanoid) showing up. And there’s an excellent Ennio Morricone score.

For more info on Bond girls and giallo, read this.

King Eagle is Jin Fei (Ti Lung), and he’s a wandering swordsman who runs into the Tien Yi Tong clan, who are dealing with their leader being killed. Martial artists from around the world come to try out to be the new leader, but First Chief (Cheung Pooi-Saan) has the edge, seeing as how he killed the original leader. King Eagle learns this and just wants to be left alone, but keeps getting brought into politics and intrigue, like all the killers hired to keep him from revealing the secret.

The guy just wants to be left alone and has no problem throwing a sword through a tree or a person to make his point.

Directed by Chang Cheh, this was his eleventh movie for Shaw Brothers. This features a love interest for our hero in Yuk Lin (Li Ching, who plays a twin role, as she is also the evil sister who helped First Chief with his schemes). Ah, King Eagle, you’re a good dude, even if you drag people behind your horse and set them on fire. You do save a child from being crushed, so you’re like an Italian Western hero.

This Eureka release has a commentary track by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. You can get it from MVD.