Category Archives: Imaginary Italian Cinema

Action/Adventure, Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema, Science Fiction, Western

#81 – Demon Streets 2099

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(1985, It, 98 min) Dir Mario Andreotti. Cast John Saxon, Romeo Romero, Paula Pitt.

It’s the future – a post-apocalyptic wasteland which here means the deserts of Spain. There are demons – yes, demons – here too. You can tell which are the demons too because handily they tend to be well dressed in suits and ties where the rest of the population are togged out in rags and dirt. Oh yeah and they’re in the habit of flying everywhere on big ol’ black leathery bat wings. Once that’s out of the way in the info dump that begins the film, this is pretty much a Western. Saxon is Preacher White, a drifter who has ridden into the town of Pestilence with a pair of phaser rifles and a mission in mind. The first film from Paolo Androetti’s son Mario who displays here the same colourful eye for a shot as his father and the same way with a bucket of hot gore too, as well he should considering that he apprenticed with his father for the ten years or more preceding this – I mean the guy pretty much grew up on sets between the model of a desiccated corpse and a hamper full of maggots. Unfortunately he also shares his fathers variable quality control – this is a mostly indifferent flick that flopped massively but his next film, The House of Midnight, set up his subsequent career nice enough.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Action/Adventure, Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema, Science Fiction

#63 – Coffin Orbit

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(1982, It, 115 min) Dir Paolo Andreotti. Cast Kirk Douglas, Carl Weathers, Candy Brown.

It’s 1982. Star Wars busted all the blocks five years ago and then Alien did the same two years after that. The studios are tarting up the schlock in trade of the likes of White Star Films so White Star Films, in turn, have to start pumping in the cash to compete. Trouble is they’ve only got so much to go around. Easy – bet it all on one, a sure-fire winner, and with the profits you make two and with the profits from that… Next stop, success! It’s a sure-fire recipe for sure but a meal’s only as good as it’s ingredients, right? So what have we got here? Andreotti knows how to direct a film, sure, but the man’s getting old and he’s coming off Vendetta di Zombie, a film that doesn’t display the kind of common touch a blockbuster needs. Who’s starring too? Kirk Douglas? Didn’t he learn anything from Saturn 3? What about plot? An previously unnoticed object is detected in orbit around our sun and NASA send Captain Dale (Douglas) and his crew to investigate. Turns out this thing is a colossal coffin for some humongous space creature and something else is in there too. Something deadly. Okay, so Coffin Orbit is no Star Wars. Yes, it’s plot is basically Alien and no, it didn’t get the blockbuster market either, but every once in a while someone spends a ton of money on something mad like this and that should be cherished, even if it sunk White Star Films in the process. Just watch it for all the money up there on-screen behind the awful acting and you’ll be fine.

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Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#45 – Notte il diavolo venne per Sandy, Il (Night the Devil Came for Sandy, The)

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(1975, It, 112 min) Dir Paolo Andreotti. Cast Nicoletta Elmi, Carla Gravina, Mel Ferrer.

Whereas the majority of exorcism films take their cue from The Exorcist and follow the story from the perspective of the parents and/or the priests, The Night the Devil Came for Sandy takes a different perspective – that of the possessed. As if that wasn’t innovation enough, as suggested by the title the whole film also takes place over the course of one night. The film opens with young Sandy (eleven year old horror vet Elmi) being tucked into bed by her mother who leaves the night-light on and goes downstairs. All is quiet until, just before Sandy drifts off to sleep, a voice comes from the darkness at the far side of the room, the voice of a small boy. “Hi Sandy,” says the voice from the dark, “My name’s Phillip.” Sandy sits up and peers into the darkness but can’t see anyone there. “Hi Phillip,” she replies, “Why are you in my bedroom?” The voice laughs. “Because I want us to be friends.” Soon enough the conversation trots along from inside the bedroom to the inside of Sandy’s head and Andreotti has plenty of excuses to throw all sorts of madness at the screen, from hair-raising dream visions of a blood-dripping Satan in her room to savage biting attacks from the possessed Sandy on the clergy (hastily assembled in the middle of the night via, presumably, some sort of exorcism hotline). Pretty well handled from the usually schlocky Andreotti with an appropriately bonkers Morricone soundtrack.

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Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#40 – Spanish Inquisition, The

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(1973, It, 80 min) Dir Antonio Marretti. Cast Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, Patrick Magellan.

Reuniting Price and Steele following Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum, Marretti’s The Spanish Inquisition finds the two of them in the same torturer/victim relationship as before. Young Francis (Magellan, still hanging around from Circo Nero and still wooden as all hell) longs to run away with his love Elizabeth (Steele) but when he finally drums up the courage to act he is interrupted by the arrival in town of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition. Price is Inquisitor Medina and from the time he first arrives he has his eyes set on Elizabeth. It all gets a bit Witchfinder General from then on – he concocts an accusation against her so that he can get her alone for some special torturing and, despite Francis’ best efforts, gets her up on the stake for the finale. But, just when you thought that unlike the Python’s Inquisition this was totally expected, Elizabeth’s head turns into a writhing ball of snakes and her unfurling bat wings snap the ropes that bind her to the stake. Yes, that’s right – she actually is some sort of Satanic hell-spawn and of course the Inquisition are running about like headless chickens because this is the first time they’ve actually seen a demon. But Elizabeth quickly blinds Inquisitor Medina and grabs a now not so keen Francis, making off into the dying sun. The special effects are terrible but points are scored for the unexpected.

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Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#22 – Circo Nero (Black Circus)

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(1972, It, 93 min) Dir Antonio Marretti. Cast Patrick Magellan, Telly Savalas, Reena Pavlova, Ingrid Pitt.

Watery flower child Duke (Magellan) is abandoned in the woods one night by his brain-dead hedonist friends and after wandering in the day for night to the accompaniment of a lonesome ballad he happens upon a big top in a clearing and risks a peek inside. On the high-wire is barely animated porcelain doll Reena Pavlova with a lonesome ballad of her own. Duke is entranced, obviously. Unfortunately for him sadistic ringmaster Telly Savalas (his bald head inexplicably, if eerily, painted red) has this doll in his collection and isn’t giving her up easy. Duke parlays his juggling skills into the position vacated by a recently deceased clown and lo he can travel with the circus and moon over Pavlova from a distance all the while seeing off the advances of dancing lady (Pitt, having a ball). Of course everyone in the troupe are Satanic hell-spawn pilfering the bodies and souls of the locals as they traverse the countryside but, despite the obviousness of their schemes and the well shot trippy dreams he keeps having about them being evil, the dim Duke is none the wiser until the final reel. The race is then on to save his captured love but is she what she seems either? Silly fun.

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Detective, Giallo, Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#21 – Quattro gocce di sangue in una stanza buia (Four Drops of Blood in a Darkened Room)

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(1971, It, 98 min) Dir Antonio Marretti. Cast Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Jack Taylor.

In 1971 Edwige Fenech was in the middle of a hot giallo streak with Five Dolls for an August Moon and Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key just two genre classics she shot around the same time as this. Quattro Gocce, while not achieving the lasting reputation of the others, has plenty for the aficionado. Fenech is an eager student by day and dissolute boot model by night in go-go Rome when her life is turned upside down following the horrible murders, in the same night, of one of her student friends and one of her model friends. It’s obvious to her (but not to the feckless polizia) that someone is closing in on her but who could the killer be? Among the many red herring are Hilton’s photographer friend and Taylor’s sweaty-palmed peeping tom, both caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course the reveal makes no sense it’s at least in keeping with the randomness of the rest of the feature and it’s flashy visuals, peppy Morricone soundtrack and some stylish kills make this a fine addition to any Friday night’s viewing.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Horror, Imaginary Italian Cinema

#6 – Vendetta di zombie (Revenge of the Living Dead)

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(1980, It, 86 min) Dir Paolo Andreotti. Cast Tisa Farrow, Fabrizio Jovine, Olga Karlatos, Michele Soavi.

Poor Tisa Farrow – she’s just back from tussling with the gross undead of the Caribbean in Zombie Flesh Eaters (and yes, the film suggests that she plays the same character here even though it makes no sense) and now, on holiday in “the Greek island”, the surprisingly perky corpses of the local fishermen are walking in with the evening tide, their flesh pale and bloated and gross. Somehow Andreotti manages to surpass the nastiness of the Fulci flick he’s imitating here, perhaps absorbing the Greek island vibe of Nico Mastorakis’ Island of Death with multiple disembowelments and, in one legendary scene, the pulling off of an unfortunate Olga Karlatos’ face. The ending is even more nihilistic too – following an unsuccessful last stand on the island’s hilltop chapel the whole of our resourceful gang are horribly slaughtered and eaten. The final moments of the film capture the setting sun as it silhouettes the shambling dead, who roam the island in wait of further unwary guests. Released in the UK and US as Revenge of the Living Dead it is thankfully unrelated to the 1970 stinker that shares that name. A belated sequel is also available should the first not suffice – 1986’s Vendetta di Zombie 2.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms