Nemesis Week: Nemesis

Welcome back to the week. In celebration of my buddy writer/director/editor Dustin Ferguson (Terror at Black Tree Forest, Silly Scaries, Doll Killer, Occult Holocaust, Cheerleader Camp: To the Death, Invitation to Die, Silent Night, Bloody Night 2: Revival, Meathook Massacre and Blood Claws) his new film project that probably starts in August Nememis 5. Better known for Horror this should be an interesting foray into an existing Sci-Fi series. The brainchild from the series director/writer/producer Albert Pyun (Cyborg, Deceit, Brain Smasher...A Love Story, Spitfire, Heatseeker, Raven Hawk, Mean Guns, Postmortem) will be executive producer for this new saga. In honor of that and the suggestion of my co-host of Rotten Ramblin' On Shawn, it was decided to sit through the first four of these cyberpunk post-apocalyptic films. This is Nemesis.

Have you any fruit to declare?

In the far away future of 2020 (Yes that was sarcasm) Alex (Olivier Gruner of Angel Town, Nemesis, Savate, Mercenary, Mars, Mercenary II: Thick & Thin, The Circuit, Crooked, Beyond the Game and Assassin X), a burned out LA cop turned bounty hunter is tracking enhanced cyborgs as he was charged with taking down The Red Army Hammerheads, a gathering of cyborg freedom fighters when it all goes pear shaped. After acquiring a data chip of a courier android, Alex runs right smack dab into the terrorists and gun fu ensues. He manages to blow away most of them at the cost of damn near his life with the surviving memeber Rosaria (Jennifer Gatti of Mobsters, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Double Exposure, Millennium Man, Blood Money, Finding Carter and Vice Principals) calls him a soulless machine and pops him.

After some cybernetic implantation and months of therapy, Alex is back to his old self. Well...86.5 percent himself as he tracks down Rosaria in to Old Baja to take her and her ragtag terrorist cell out. 

Man this wig is warm.

His handler/former lover Jared (Majorie Monaghan of The Bonfire of Vanities, Regarding Henry, Nemesis, The Osiris Chronicles, Babylon 5, Rescue 77, Becker and Andromeda) is an android that pulled him from prison and gave him his terrorist slaying missions and now he has to dull the pain of his synthetic organs and cyber implants with a drug making him practically a slave for his masters. They let him run wild for a time, freelance gun for hire/triggerman if you will until, you guessed it. Yet another gunfight goes horribly awry.

With more rehab and improvements, Commissioner Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson of Fade to Black, Trancers, Near Dark, Air America, Dollman, Trancers II, Trancers III, Nemesis, Brain Smasher... A Love Story and Spitfire) gives Alex one last assignment, to track down and eliminate Jared and her network of spies and terrorists. The story they gave Alex feels hinky at best but with his new rebuild they added a bomb to his heart set to go off in three days unless he tracks down Jared. In New Rio, Alex makes his way to a cyborg name of Julian (Deborah Shelton of The Yellow Rose, Body Double, Dallas, The Choice,Sins of the Night, Desire, Plughead Rewired: Circutry Man II and High Tide) and a strike team is waiting to pounce on Jared.

OooO hot chick.  Hey isn't that Thomas Jane against her?

Julian tells Alex the main reason Farnsworth is after Jared because of the info she has is about a plot for the machines to take key roles in the governments all over the planet. Whether Alex believes this or not, the crap has hit the fan and the bullets starting flying.

Can Alex stop this plot? Will Farnsworth pop Alex as well? Are humans even aware the dangers of the androids and cyborgs possess?

To be fair, I have seen this film before and I love the cyberpunk genre since Phillip K Dick and William Gibson starting writing it. The action is impressive, the story sound and even the exposition is decent. Loved seeing Vincent Klyn of Cyborg and Point Break being a terrifying bad ass again as well.

B-movie it may be but don't be too quick to discount the potential for a good flick. Hell, A list film have been known to fall flat on their ass.  Just ask Judge Dredd.

M-hm, good peep show here.

Italian Dark Universe: Dawn of the Mummy

And we return to Italian Dark Universe and what would cap the week off best is a mummy movie. Technically this is a Egyptian/US/Italian venture but Italy is in there, right? Good enough! To be honest I was looking at the myriad of shark films instead. Didn't even occur to me Italian mummy flick until an hour ago. So from Egyptian producer/director Frank Agrama (Queen Kong,Birth, Around the World in 80 Days, The Man Who lived at the Ritz, Shaka Zulu, Dragon Ball, Return to the Lost World, American Strays, Robotech II: The Sentinels and Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years) and Italian screenwriters Daria Price (Take Off, The Nesting, Dawn of the Mummy and Survival of the Fittest) and Ronald Dobrin (Queen Kong and Dawn of the Mummy) bring us our film. This is Dawn of the Mummy.

May the gods see you home.

In the year 3000 BC, after a lengthy ceremony of burying a pharaoh, his gold and slaves, the high priestess (Laila Nasr of Harry Boy and Dawn of the Mummy) invokes a curse placed on it should anyone dare disturb the tomb. And with that they seal the tomb of gold sprayed pots, an near Ark of the Covenant and six living slaves.

Cut to 1981 as tomb raiders blow a hole in the cliff face to unseal the tomb. Because of the noxious toxins released to kill the slaves, the head raider suggests giving it a day to air out. I was thinking at least two weeks and full Hazmat gear with turbine fans but that's just me. Our blond haired, blue eyed destroyer of lands and pillager of artifacts is warned by Xena (Laila Nasr) the no so much warrior princess but channeling superstition in true Friday the 13^th Crazy Ralph fashion screaming about the curse. Criminal blue eyed f**k shoots at her, scares her off and tells his hired goons to watch the cave entrance for fellow bandits. Three guys check out the cave, have their skins melted off and boom! Title card and grooving, funky New York City in view as folk walking about and getting to work.

Mila Jovavich's facial went awry!

Cut to models traveling through Giza on Jeep while Melinda (Ellen Faison of Hail, Sweet,Sweet Freedom, Love,in Strange Places, Bloodsucking Freaks,Visions and Acting Out) cannot be bothered with the spoils and wonder of the Pyramids because her toe nail polish has to be just so. Yeah she will be a main character. Grrr... Jenny (Joan Levy of Dawn of the Mummy, H.E.L.P. And The Bumblebee Flies Anyway) points out to the splendor of the land as photographer Gary (John Salvo of Dawn of the Mummy, George Washington II: The Forging of Nation, Perfect Cimes and Murphy Brown) preps for a modeling shoot. Remember this is the 80s so Vogue has big bucks to field this fly out to Giza for probably some offensive mummy summer wear shoot.

How much for the women?

Our models and camera crew get hit by the plot device and pop a tire. Our gang goes out to explore only to encounter a dead man's head in the sand. A decent prop head but hardly worth three shots worth. Personally I loved the skull and crossbones red paint to establish the thieves are carrying dynamite. Nice touch. So our jiggly girl shoot commences while more dynamite is released yet again. Pretty sure the models, male and female alike are deaf. I also can't help but notice Gary looks like David Hess just less murderous and rapey. With more spouts of the curse, the first 25 minutes drags on a bit but all our characters have been developed...as best as they can be.

The photo crew and thieves meet up with McGuffin as one of the thieves drew their attention. Well a cursory viewing later and this will be the greatest snaps in all of ze world. Somehow the heavy lamps start awakening the mummy. I figured it was the inane banter that did it but what do I know.

Thirty minutes before we get any hint to a mummy as the thieves move to their benefactors and FINALLY the mummy gets off his undead ass starting a rampage. 5000 years or not, this dude was under Operation:Dragonass. With all the heat lamps, the mummy was making like a Stouffer's lasagna...TAKING FOREVER TO COOK!!!

So a round of POV hide the creature gag is done and I am thinking,"Movie, you're called Dawn of the Mummy, stop hiding." Still love the whisk to safety to Ahmed's and he looks like Lesiure Suit Larry. He should have a neon sign over him exclaiming " Sell Girls to Shieks!"

With the mummy in hot pursuit and yet I mean slow as molasses in Boston January, our cameramen think they know a thing or two when dealing with the undead. Also those poor slaves at the beginning of the movie, yeah they're basically ghouls now. Flesh eaters still having to serve their dick of a pharaoh. No unions in servitude.

Will the Mummy bring about a biblical curse?? Is Armageddon sure to follow?? Why is the sky blue??

Practical effects wise, this isn't bad. The pacing is a tad slow and yet characters are hastily rushed in. With the smaller budget of 400k, actual pyramids and having both Cairo and Giza as your backdrop you have easily whip the BS studio productions of Styrofoam with flecked spray paint or gelatinous coating sound dampening substance. So existing structures, cities and the like give the production value an amazing level. That being said however, I was not blown away by meddling teens/twenty somethings raising the undead cliche. You damn kids!!!

Your cast is relatively unknowns that none had a breakaway performance per-say but was not a horrible movie experience. It did crack me up that Harmony Gold Ltd.was the distributor given they are better known for anime such as Voltron, Defender of the Universe and the Robotech series. Not sure were mummy movies fit on that scale.   Still no Tom Cruise screaming and close up pans of him running.

Another Jelly party takes a dark turn.

Italian Dark Universe: Monster Dog

I bid you greetings and usher you back to Italian Dark Universe because...shared universes always turn out well. Look at AVP and Freddy Vs Jason. Such cinematic delights they were. Y'know I have witnessed titanic tainted turds. I have waded through some putrified piles of puppy poop and then there is this movie. What do you get when you cross the Godfather of Horror Rock with an illustrious Italian Horror director?! Well normally if we were speaking of Mario Bava, Dario Argento or Lucio Fulci I would say an awesome sauce of film making. Alas, we have none of those men up to bat. Hell we don't even have Bruno Mattei at the helm. Nope, instead we got Troll 2's own Claudio Fargasso (Women's Prison Massacre, Rats: Night of Terror, Cop Game, Zombi 3, Strike Commando 2 and Shocking Dark). This is Monster Dog a.k.a. The Bite and Lord of the Dogs.

Welcome to Alice's Contractual Nightmare...

OoO scary music with a red background and title fonts. Now I am not expecting gold but honestly this film feels like I didn't get coal in my stocking as much as a heaping collection of reindeer crap. Of all music sensations, Vince Raven (Alice Cooper of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Roadie, Prince of Darkness, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Wayne's World and Dark Shadows) is finished with his latest rock video (that was when MTV stood for Music Television, younger readers) and his girlfriend Sandra (Victoria Vera of Rosalia, Canas y barro, Rebeldia, Under Seige, Black Jack, Freddie of the Jungle and Private Crimes) alongside the film crew of said video suggest they film in Vince's hometown for the next hit off his latest album. We are in 1984, people. This kind of welcome home would be pitchforks and torches, possibly some Latin chanting while waving bibles and/or crucifixes.

Sheriff Bluto and Deputy Andy Gibb patrol the streets.

Former schoolmate and childhood chum is now Sheriff Morrison (Ricardo Palacios of Ragan, El Condor, Secret Intentions, The Man Called Noon, The House on Garabaldi Street and The Beasts' Carnival) greets Vince but warns him of the late night shooting would be problematic as there have been vicious dog attacks and they should stay on their toes. Now the fact there are 5 crew members shooting this video really bugged me and proved once again Fargasso had next to no budget. Seriously, five people working on a professional video shoot?

No sooner the main cast has been warned in lesser Crazy Ralph tradition, the law of the town is killed by the wild dogs. They ate the sheriff and the deputy!!! Now who will confiscate pot from teens or leer and peep on the kids at Make Out Point?!

I'm gonna drive the hell out of this scene.

The jaunt to the house is interrupted when the driver accidentally runs over a German Shepard with jump cuts. Not wanting it to suffer another single minute of being in this film I mean in pain, Vince cracks its skull with a rock. As the crew is paused of the death an old man spattered in blood attacks them announcing they will all die and then flees to the woods. So if we are to believe this lycanthrope can shapeshift...why a German Shepard? Also was his clothes nearby or do they just shift up inside of him when he is in dog form? Well the cast splits up and you know what happens from there.

Vince thinks he was bit at some point in the film and tells Sandra he cannot live that nightmare of chasing parked cars and licking his balls all the while not falling off the couch.

Other than unusual film choices, Alice Cooper may have created 26 albums, 48 singles, 11 live albums and 21 compilation albums. Six of which went platinum in the US and 2 additional went gold.

With the typical lack of continuity, editing and just decent storytelling, this film had potential. I am still curious how a rocker got dressed like a soccer dad between shoots but that was the least of my worries.

Alice Cooper has been dubbed over with a guy that sounds like he is trying desperately to be a hybrid of Raymond Burr and Edward Mannix. The blocking was terrible, the werewolf was an dry ice shrouded puppet and the rest of the cast is Italian with the exception of Cooper. Cast and directed by Italians, shot in Spain you get the feeling it was never meant for the land of the living. While the musical score was genuinely creepy, the pace was fair I would recommend this film to MST3K or IncognitoCinema Warriors XP for riffing delight.

Grr.  This is the best the puppet could do.  Grr.

Italian Dark Universe: Blood for Dracula

Welcome back to Italian Dark Universe. Yeah I may have made that title up...like so many others. Today's film is also produced by the legendary Andy Warhol and directed by Paul Morrissey (Flesh, Lonesome Cowboys, San Diego Surf, Trash, Women in Revolt, Heat, L'Amour, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles). Will this be as lurid and lewd as its predecessor Flesh for Frankenstein? This is Blood for Dracula a.k.a. Andy Warhol's Dracula, Andy Warhol's Young Dracula, Dracula and Young Dracula.

Bah, credits always show up when I am putting on my face.

Our film opens with Dracula (Udo Kier of Mark of the Devil, Provocation, The Salzburg Connection, Blood for Dracula, The Last Word, Trauma, Suspiria, Lulu, The Island of the Bloody Plantation, Johnny Mnemonic, Blade and Shadow of the Vampire) looking baroque as he rubs a dark makeup in his eyebrows, presumably hiding the aging the vampire takes on when he has fed. But he requires virgin blood to improve his undead health or it is permanent death for him. It is the 1920s in Transylvania is lacking a larger population thanks to centuries of feeding on his people for so long, it is time to set up shop elsewhere and proceeds to to Italy with his manservant Anton (Arno Juerging of Die Kramer, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula, All Around Service, Ein Mann will nach oben and Didi- Der Doppleganger) as a gentleman abroad searching for a suitable bride. Yup that old chestnut.

That is NOT the Transylvanian Twist!

Surveying the countryside and its people, the Count is aware of the highly religious Catholics being strict with their daughters when he encounters a family with no less than four daughters wets the Count's appetite.

Saphiria (Dominique Darel of Death in Venice, La cosa buffa, The Grand Duel, Sepolta viva, Blood for Dracula, Year One and Il nero muove), Esmeralda (Milena Vukotic of Blood of Dracula, The Phantom of Liberty, Erotomania, The Voyage Into the Whirlpool Has Begun, My Friends, The House of Raoul, La terrazza, La locandiera, Sunday Lovers and Fantozzi Against the Wind), Rubina (Stefania Casini of Blood for Dracula, 1900, Suspiria, The Belly of an Architect, Lontano da dove and Maicol Jecson) and Perla (Silvia Dionisio of Police Chief Pepe, A Girl Called Jules, Blood for Dracula, My Friends, Terror Express, Ciao marziano, The Fascist Jew, Murder Syndrome and La sconosciuta) each pleasing to the eye makes the count wonder if these girls are as virginal as they claim.

Yeah she seems less virginal. Not judging!

Groundskeeper Mario(Joe Dallesandro of Flesh, Lonesome Cowboys, San Diego Surf, Trash, Heat, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula, Garden of Death, One Woman's Lover, The Climber, Black Moon, Season for Assassins, The Streetwalker and Born Winner) burns off excess energy by porking at least two of the sisters, some times in the same night. Never knew how randy a Marxist could be.

Will Dracula have his virgin breakfast,tea, supper the lot?? Will Mario fight Dracula and save his Peach?

Little side note here.  I was wondering if it was all an act on Udo Kier's part but turns out he lost 20 lbs in a week for the role and was extremely ill so he had to sit for most of the scenes on the first day. It is odd that Flesh for Frankenstein fell under the Video Nasty standing and yet a flick with sexuality, clearly a clash of aristocratic monarchy vs Communism and a rape for good intentions (yeah I know I just typed it and believe me I wish I hadn't seen it) this somehow remained intact without a ton of cuts to it.

Originally tallying at 103 minutes, it was chopped down to 94 minutes when released to VHS but was made whole in 1995 and since made to DVD the uncut (PENIS JOKE!) version has long graced the Horror shelves.

With the disturbing content of molestation, vampirism hymen attacks and lapping blood off the floor you can gather if I need to see a Dracula film I can stick with Christopher Lee of the Hammer titles, Dracula 1979 with Frank Langella or the Francis Ford Coppola 1992 version with Gary Oldman thank you! Now if you will excuse me, I need to throw mind bleach down my system.

Tee hee.  Jake snubbed you of the nudity again!

Italian Dark Universe: Flesh for Frankenstein

And we are back. Last week was messed up for reasons we won't go into. Today we are going to explore more obscure Italian horror films because...I couldn't think of anything else to view. This day's viewing pleasure was financed by the legendary Andy Warhol and directed by exploitation Horror and Action guru Paul Morrissey (Flesh, Lonesome Cowboys, San Diego Surf, Trash, Women in Revolt, Heat, L'Amour, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula and The Hound of the Baskervilles) This is Flesh for Frankenstein a.k.a. Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Up Frankenstein, The Devil and Dr. Frankenstein and Andy Warhol's Young Frankenstein.

Well that is an impressive cazzo. 

Okay before we go into the story this movie was rated X due to its explicit sexuality and severe violence. The MPAA had a field day with this flick due to avant-garde style shooting and open sexuality that the only thing that didn't make this a porno was penetration shots.

Our movie opens in Serbia with the Baron (Udo Kier of Mark of the Devil, Provocation, The Salzburg Connection, Blood for Dracula, The Last Word, Trauma, Suspiria, Lulu, The Island of the Bloody Plantation, Johnny Mnemonic, Blade and Shadow of the Vampire), his wife the Baroness Katrin (Monique van Vooren of Tarzan and the She-Devil, The Infiltrator, Gigi, Fearless Frank, Batman and Wall Street) and their two children dwell. His obsession with creating the perfect Serbian race by creating the perfect male and female from yup, you guessed it. The corpses of many a body. Need a obsession of a perfect nose for each.

Honey get these subtitles off my throat.

Busy juggling two animated corpses, he is quite swamped with Male (Srdjan Zelenovic of I Miss Sonia Henie and Flesh for Frankenstein) and Female (Dalila Di Lazzaro of It Can Be Done Amigo, The Scopone Game, Frankenstein '80, Tales of Canterbury, The Beast, Il gatto, The Last Romantic Lover, Miss Right, Killer vs Killers, Phenomena, Sicilian Connection, Paganini, and Breath of Life) his assistant Otto (Arno Juerging of Die Kramer, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula, All Around Service, Ein Mann will nach oben and Didi- Der Doppleganger) brings his "A" game as true henchman form. This particular Frankenstein's sexual nature is repressed by a need for domination as he creates his new flesh golems. Yeah there was no support group for his more risque fetish.

Um...yeah he could use a shrink.

Unbeknownst to Frankenstein, his male creature was once friends with a fellow stableboy Nicholas (Joe Dallesandro of Flesh, Lonesome Cowboys, San Diego Surf, Trash, Heat, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula, Garden of Death, One Woman's Lover, The Climber, Black Moon, Season for Assassins, The Streetwalker and Born Winner) and his current occupation is plowing the Baroness like the back forty. Must enjoy his work.

Under the complete submission of the Baron, the creatures sat at the dinner table with his family. As Nicholas serves the family, he recognizes the male creature as his friend. Damned to get noticed, he follows the Baron into his lab only to get captured by the good doctor.

Will the animate zombie orgy continue?? How screwed up will the Baron's kids be??

So some interesting trivia. The Cinecitta was originally founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini, his son Vittorio and the head of cinema was Luigi Freddi. Part of the Fascist era but several parts of the studio were bombed during the bombing of Rome in WWII. In the 50s rebuilt prio to Ben-Hur. Some of the battered sets were used for HBO series Rome.

So with its graphic content I can imagine the kiddies might want skip this one. So necrophilia, nudity and gore aside I am sure it's always what Mary Shelley envisioned.

So do I get my down payment, ma'am?

Fun with Bava: Shock

Welcome back for more Fun with Bava. Today I thought we would focus on the last feature Bava worked on in 1977. The ending of disco, cocaine and freaky deaky sex acts to later be replaced with the 80s. Chilling thought.  Now I bring up this film because we once again run into an also know as scenario.   Because we the subculture, crass Americans couldn't possibly distinguish different directors this film today was released in the US under the title Beyond the Door II.  IT HAS NOTHING to do with the original Ovidio G Assonitis' Beyond the Door.  If anything Beyond the Door is Italian Rosemary's Baby.  This is Shock a.k.a. Beyond the Door II, Suspense and The Demon is Nuts.

Ugh. He just kneed me in the boob.

Personally I love the last title because I am curious to wonder what would drive a demon crackers. Too much Barney? Sat through Dora the Explorer one too many times?

Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi of Deep Red, Tenebre, Phenomena, Delirium, Opera, Sinbad of the Seven Seas, Paganini Horror, School of Fear, The Devil's Daughter and Notes of Love) has returned. Returned to the house of her first marriage to live after an extended stay in an asylum for seven years. She moves back into this home that brought her horrors along with her son Marco (David Colin Jr of Beyond the Door and Beyond the Door II). OoOoO Pseudo Sequel!!!  The kid from the first one is in it...in spite of playing a completely different character.   With her new husband Bruno (John Steiner of Beyond the Door II, A Man Called Blade, Question of Love, Caligula, The Last Hunter, Tenebre, Yor, the Hunter from the Future, The Ark of the Sun God and Cut and Run) or is that Biondo from Salon Kitty? Oh crap it is. Lady don't trust an ageless Nazi with you and your son!

gorgogliare is Italian for gurgle.

Any rate Dora was released from the wacko basket given her incarceration was based around the mysterious death of her first husband. Bruno is an airline pilot and is gone most days of the week leaving Dora with Marco (POLO!) all alone. Thanks to extensive electroshock treatments (They still did that in the seventies?) she believes her son is channeling her dead husband to torture and torment even beyond the grave.

Dora starts to recall the events that lead up to late husband's death and what the memories of this house brings. She needs to flee and would take Marco but she now fears him. The walls of sanity are crashing down Dora as she looks about her in a feeble attempt to hold on to her mind and her son.

Will Dora succumb to madness?? Will Bruno inherit the house?? Can Marco lose both parents??

First off loving the handheld camera work. Some of these angles looks like tracking shoots panning for full 360 degrees, dolly track, other looks like the poor cameraman would have been hanging over a railing to capture certain shots. All in all a gorgeous shoot.   As far as the storyline, you can see the influence this film had on things like Stir of Echoes or What Lies Beneath. A notion of past horrors manifested in spirit and guilt.

You see dear, normally my British accent is allowed but not this film.

Looking at the earliest reviews of this movie, most of the critics give it a pass or call it mildly notable that Bava did this film. From trick cinematography, talented actors, moody lighting and an excellent musical score, this macabre film has creepy down pat. I was amused to hear Edward Mannix yet again for dubbing but sadly he was only voicing one of the movers at the very beginning of the film. Such a waste! 

Should have used lanolin on those dry monster hands.

Fun with Bava: Blood Brides

Welcome to the week. At the suggestion of my Rotten Ramblin' On co-host Shawn I tackle some more Mario Bava for your reading pleasure and my viewing enjoyment. A brilliant idea so I decided to dive right in on that today. With a series of unexplained murders of young brides-to-be, these grizzly deeds go unchecked. This is Blood Brides a.k.a. Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Honeymoon, Red Wedding Night and An Axe for the Honeymoon.

Italian Clint Eastwood??

Manager of bridal dress factory John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth of Love and Marriage, In a Colt's Shadow, Fury in Marrakesh, Death at Owell Rock, Acid Delirium of the Senses, Black Jesus, and Blood Brides) seems to suffer from narrative's disease. Thankfully no echo reverb like Chuck Norris in The Octagon. John also seems to have an Oedipus complex. While he is cool and collective on the surface, he has inner demons needing to be kept at bay with his older wife Mildred (Laura Betti of Teorema, The Canterbury Tales, 1900, Art of Love, To Catch a Cop, Mamma Ebe, All the Fault of Paradise, Sweets from a Stranger, Widow's Walk, The Blue Rose, Courage Mountain, Suffocating Heat and The Rebel) while he comes to grips with his obvious dementia. John keeps flashing back to some event in the past, something his own subconscious is attempting to forever conceal from him.

That being said he and the wife usually start the day with a screaming match at the breakfast table of John belting out about a divorce and Mildred will have none of it. John storms out of the house and to his office where he meets Helen Wood (Dagmar Lassander of Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, The Black Corsair, Seagulls Fly Low, Sugar, Honey and Pepper, The Black Cat, The House by the Cemetery, Devil Fish, The Pleasure, The Family and Tommaso), a full-figured gal applying for modeling for the bridal gowns after the previous model..."disappeared".

Why, this model is dead on her feet. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

With this new model put into employment, one of the lovelier models, Alice Norton (Femi Benussi of The Hawks and the Sparrows, Blood Brides, So Sweet, So Dead, The Countess Died of Laughter, When Love Is Lust, Special Killers, Tales of Erotica, Blood Money and The Private Lesson) seems to want to leave the salon due to getting married, so John offers her a choice of any of the dresses in storage. Foolishly trusting her boss who has embraced his inner goofballs he proceeds to hack her to death with a meat cleaver and dispose of her body with the furnace of his greenhouse.

Hmm, why does the cameraman have no pants?

The next day Inspector Russell (Jesus Puente of Teatro de siempre, Aventuras y desventuras de Mateo, Primera hora, Obsesion, El teatro, Novela, Blood Brides, Shouts of Anxiety and You're te One) comes snooping around Harrington at the request of Alice's fiancee giving Harrington pause as Russell points out that six models have disappeared from his bridal salon but no real evidence can bring Harrington in. Meaning John will have to kill with a tad bit more discretion. Meanwhile John is becoming smitten by Helen with plans of spending the rest of his days with her as soon as he gets rid of the nuisance that is his wife Mildred.

Will Mildred get more than split ends?? Will Helen ever figure out John belongs in the wacko basket??

Okay a few things of note now. Stephen Forsyth does an amazing balance of creepy and broken so well I wondered if they were just drugging his drinks on set or if the guy is a manic depressive. It was actually spellbinding watching him work. Patented Bava close up on hands and eyes while eerie as crap music ranging from a harpsichord to small orchestral plays gently in the background.

The story takes its time, builds suspense and gives gore fans some love as well. With lens shots through glass cut doorknobs, vases and mirror work, it gives the effect that the walls of reality are crashing down on John and he doesn't know what to do. Inspector Russell has been dubbed with the glory of authority of Edward Mannix. Man that guy got a lot of work. Sorry fellas but no large quantities of nudity. If you really need that in your giallo movie, toss me a message and I will point you in the direction for it to be found. This my friends is a psychological thriller.

Canoodling on a train can lead to DEATH!!!