The Black Cat (1990)

Dir: Luigi Cozzi

This oddball unofficial sequel to "Suspiria" and "Inferno" finds Cozzi going vaguely post-modern on our asses and having a pair of filmmakers try to script a "Third Mother" film to cash-in on the success of Argento's classics. However, all this attention lavished on the Mother of Tears (a whole four pages of screenplay, apparently!) is too much and she is SUMMONED! The filmmakers begin to see her glowing-eyed, maggoty visage everywhere and they start to drop dead (and/or explode!) one after the other. This should be quite a simple premise but Cozzi packs his script with an array of increasingly weird twists and turns that eventually render the film impossible to follow (especially when time and space themselves start to bend for the climax), albeit oddly entertaining. It's a kaleidoscope of crazy lighting, splattery gore (Cozzi visibly has a love for watching people explode from the inside out and, y'know what? So do I!), multi-coloured lasers, eighties haircuts and Caroline Munro in her lingerie. So yeah, it's not right, but it's okay. As usual, Cozzi's rabid enthusiasm for the genre covers up a good many problems that could punch holes in less spirited efforts. Also, this is a lot more coherent and watchable than the real "Mother of Tears" wound up being. **

The Eye In The Labyrinth (1972)

Dir: Mario Caiano

Weird giallo in which a beautiful but seemingly unemployed woman with no friends or family (played by the wonderful Rosemary Dexter) investigates her boyfriend's disappearance. The search takes her to a weird villa populated by a dizzying array of misfits, hepcats and scumbags, all of whom appear to have a motive for bumping him off. Between the surprise transvestites, child perverts, drug barons and retired gangsters, the plot is convoluted to say the least. It has more red herrings than a sith fishmonger but, despite best efforts to obfuscate with weirdness, the final twist is blindingly obvious from the opening scenes. Sure, the cast is interesting, there's a nice black streak of humour and the Argento-esque camera-play is lively but this isn't quite enough to make the preposterous plot fly. One for the completists. *1/2

Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Dir: Victor Salva

I never saw this one at the time but, watching it now, it hasn't really aged that well. Justin Long and Gina Phillips play a brother and sister driving home from college along a barren highway. In true Duel style, they're pursued by a creepy old truck and a deadly cat and mouse game is thrown down. The cat, however, soon turns out to have some unexpected claws... There are some things to enjoy about this modern-day creature feature - a couple of really nasty gore scenes and high production values in particular - but it's just too thin a plot (monster-chases-kids...endlessly) to work for 90 minutes. It probably would've made a nice 45 minute Masters of Horror episode but, as it stands, there are some very odd, laboured attempts to stretch things out and it's hard to maintain a sense of threat for such a long time without getting to the implausible "they're still not dead!?" stage. *1/2

Etoile (1989)

Dir: Peter Del Monte

Extremely bizarre Italian fairytale/thriller from the 80s stars Jennifer Connelly as a ballet student who flies to an unspecified European city (Budapest? Rome? Vienna? Seems to be a little of all three) to audition for some kind of Suspiria-esque school that has "get the fuck out!" written all over it. Things get weird when she becomes possessed by a long-dead ballerina, stalked by a creepy old guy (well, two creepy old guys if you include horribly miscast "handsome" lead Gary McCleery) and forced to perform in some sort of ghost version of "Swan Lake". There are some incredible ideas in "Etoile", it is filmed beautifully and the ballet backdrop is always one I appreciate in a horror film, but it's way too muddled, unstructured and incomprehensible to work. There are several annoying dead end subplots (including one with a manic, screaming Charles Durning buying and selling clocks for no discernible reason) and Connelly and McCleery's total lack of onscreen chemistry kill their scenes together but it's actually worth sitting through all the nonsense just for the truly insane final reel. I don't want to give away the twist but it's one of the most glorious "WTF!?" moments I can remember. Not a great film but wow, what an ending. For an idea as batshit outlandish as that, I'm willing to forgive a multitude of sins! **

The Bloodstained Shadow (1978)

Dir: Antonio Bido

Solid giallo that lowers the usual quotient of gore (there's hardly any) and nudity (there's one fleeting scene) in favour of focusing on the mystery and atmosphere. In this one, Lino Capolicchio plays a dude named Stefano (not to be confused with the dude named Stefano that he plays in "The House With Windows That Laughed") who suffers some kind of unexplained breakdown and goes to stay with his brother, a priest, on some foggy island near Venice. On Stefano's first night, his brother witnesses the murder of a local spiritualist loony and starts subsequently receiving notes that threaten to kill him too. Stefano just about manages to distract himself from his blossoming relationship with Stefania Casini long enough to work out the killer's identity. Admittedly, I didn't have Stefania Casini distracting me but, sad to say, I solved the mystery about an hour before Stefano did and this is the film's biggest weakness. It's a predictable ending but the direction is slick, the script moves quickly, it looks beautiful, there's a cool squelchy Goblin score and I enjoyed the two lead performances immensely. It's definitely worth a watch if you're into the genre and is certainly amongst the most coherent and accessible gialli out there. **1/2

Near Dark (1986)

Dir: Katheryn Bigelow

I watched this by accident on TV when I was about 14, absolutely loved it and somehow never saw it again despite it being a "major" big budget movie that's been readily available on all formats throughout my lifetime. I think part of me was afraid that, as an adult, I'd watch it and the magic of that one intense, late-night viewing would somehow be ruined. But no. "Near Dark" is still as fantastic as it ever was. Part modern-day western, part outlaw road movie, part vampire romance; Adrian Pasdar plays a straw-chewin' horse-ridin' goober who takes home a beautiful girl and gets more than he bargained for. After being bitten and turned into a creature of the night, he's forced to hit the trails with her fucked-up vampire "family" (led by a never-more-menacing Lance Henriksen), where he must either adjust to their lifestyle of nightly mass murder or die. There are one or two minor elements of "Near Dark" that are a little corny I suppose - and the flashy (though admittedly breathtaking) action sequences as every bit as OTT as you'd expect from the director of "Point Break" - but there's just something about it that gets under the skin and stays there. The script is a pitch-perfect combination of contemporary edginess and classic Hollywood. You can feel the dusty heat of the southern settings and almost taste the darkness at times. The characterisation is wonderful (there could've been an extra hour of just talking and it still wouldn't feel too long) and the infamous barroom massacre scene is still one of the most shocking ten minutes of horror cinema I can think of. A genuinely great horror film. ****

Death Laid An Egg (1968)

Dir: Giulo Questi

The beautiful Ewa Aulin leads the cast of this psychedelic proto-giallo set in a hi-tech poultry farm. There are a couple of plots going on at once here; one involving a love triangle between Aulin's character, her cousin (Jean-Louis Trintigant) and his wife (Gina Lollobrigida!) and another involving the farm's ultimate owners (THE ASSOCIATION) and some mutant headless chickens that double in size at an alarming rate having accidentally fed on a combination of dead dog and radiation... Um. Yeah. There's a dude in black leather gloves killing some women in lingerie as well if that helps you? "Death Laid An Egg" is an odd one in that it's years ahead of the giallo curve with its insane crossover ideas and its beautiful photography by Fellini collaborator Dario di Palma (think of how an episode of "Mad Men" might look if you watch it right after sustaining a serious bump on the head). It's rich with symbolism. Even the "mystery" element,as pulpy as it is, makes sense. But there's just something that doesn't quite work. If it's anything, it's an overabundance of ideas trying awkwardly to squeeze into 85 minutes (which is no bad thing in itself) but there's just something stopping it from attaining the greatness that it so frequently brushes. **1/2

Contamination (1980)

Dir: Luigi Cozzi

This lovably goofy sci-fi/horror crossover starts with a bunch of alien eggs finding themselves transported from Mars into New York on a mysterious abandoned boat. Sounds boring but it turns out - and get this! - that if you get any goo from the eggs on yourself, YOU EXPLODE. Yeah. EXPLODE. Like, totally. From the guts out. IN SLOW MOTION, no less. A tough talking army colonel, an alcoholic astronaut and a wise-cracking cop try to save the world from the explodey eggs but the odds are stacked against them as more and more keep appearing... IN THE UNLIKELIEST OF PLACES! In many respects, Contamination is unashamedly B-Grade, taking its cues from the schlockiest of 50s drive-in classics and loading itself with corny dialogue and cheap laughs. In others, however, it's surprisingly polished. There are some really slick sequences, a lot of cool location shooting and some decent (and very splattery) special FX. There's a budget here and it's put to impeccable use. It's the kind of film that could never be made now; if anything, it's maybe the only true posthumous postscript of drive-in chic. A loving full stop at the end of an era. Whatever else though, "Contamination" is a blast. Endlessly entertaining. ***

Howl of the Devil (1987)

Dir: Paul Naschy

Paul Naschy (who also writes, produces and directs this) plays a pair of brothers, Alex and Hector Doriani. Alex is a B-Movie horror actor. Hector is a serious thespian. They hate each other but when Alex dies, his son Adrian (played by Naschy's own son) is placed into Hector's care. Hector beats the boy, abuses the servants and has a habit of abducting and drugging prostitutes for his weird sex games, so Adrian (understandably) retreats into a world of fantasy based on the characters played by his late father. This turbo-paced movie plays a little like an overheated, X-rated Spanish soap opera on fast-forward but with the mind-boggling bonus of Paul Naschy playing no fewer than 12 roles. Besides Alex and Hector, he is also Rasputin, Quasimodo, Bluebeard, Frankenstein's Monster, Fu Manchu, The Phantom of the Opera, Mr Hyde, his own wolfman creation Waldermar Daninsky (in one of the film's rare moments of poignancy), a mummy/zombie and, ultimately, Satan. On one hand "Howl of the Devil" is a glorious mess; a feverish kaleidoscope of misogynistic shouting, gratuitous nudity and ever-increasing absurdity. On the other, taken as part of Naschy's oeuvre, it's a heartfelt love letter to the artform he mastered and a furious lashing-out at the audience who rejected his genius. There's even political allegory in there; a disparaging of both tyrannical government (bear in mind Naschy's career began under General Franco's regime) and the Catholic church. What's weirdest is that, if you take out the fact that no one would/could ever behave like any of these characters do, the story - within its own universe - actually makes sense and has a really good twist. This kind of intensely personal cinema is rarely so entertaining as it is here and "Howl of the Devil" has the added bonus of watching Naschy - for perhaps the only time - completely off leash and wildly indulging every B-Movie fantasy he's ever had. For those who appreciate his genius, this is stuff that will really raise the goosebumps. Why this has never had a proper DVD release is beyond me. ***1/2

The Killer Reserved Nine Seats (1974)

Dir: Giuseppe Bennati

Incomprehensible giallo which tries to blend as many subgenres as possible in order to achieve an optimum level of confusion for the viewer. It starts out as a kind of drawing room mystery. Ten rich assholes who hate each other congregrate in a theatre that's been abandoned for a hundred years after a series of unsolved murders. They're picked off one by one by a black-gloved killer in what appears to be a Harpo Marx mask (!) but there's also a gothic element in play here; hidden doors in the wall, family curses, candlelit corridors and torrid melodrama (even a little incest!). To cap things off, they start hearing voices that can't be recorded on tape and seeing a strange man who materialises (and disappears as quickly) in random places to spout nonsense. This all leads to a bizarre, almost Fulci-esque conclusion in a hidden labyrinth beneath the theatre. The sets are great, there's one particularly shocking death scene and it's all peppered with copious nudity but Bennati's offbeat direction is too scattershot to pull it all together. Ultimately, the slipshod way in which the film tosses aside even its own internal logic in favour of twisting the meagre plot further towards obscurity wrecks what could've been a far better movie. File under "obscure and interesting curio" instead. **

Fear Island (2009)

Dir: Michael Storey

Haylie Duff, Aaron Ashmore and their pushing-30-but-pretending-to-be-college-age friends take a boat out to a secluded island with no telephones, where they have a delightful holiday in the sun, then go home feeling rejuvenated and serene. What? No, I'm kidding of course! They get picked off one by one in a variety of imaginative ways, courtesy of a black-gloved killer who's lurking in the woods! Hoorah! There's not a high special FX budget sadly, so instead we have snakes in the cupboard, dogs in the hot tub, nails in the jam jar, nailguns in very much the wrong hands, impromptu premature burials and an ice-bucket o' blood. This is all told in flashback while an angry boneheaded detective works with what little he has (one traumatized witness and some sketchy evidence) in order to uncover the killer's identity. The mystery has a couple of holes here and there but it's quite lively and the final twist, while not a surprise, is entertainingly executed. "Fear Island" obviously isn't a great movie but for a made-for-TV teen slasher, someone's really put their all into making it about as good as it can get. It's very tame and daft as a bag of toy monkeys but it's colourful, fast-paced, occasionally even funny. You could do a lot worse for a Sunday afternoon hangover viewing. **1/2

Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)

Dir: Dario Argento

An abstract giallo from Argento's halcyon days that doesn't work as well as it should do. I appreciate that he was experimenting with the form he helped create and the artistry (and indeed audacity) of some the setpiece scenes here is breathtaking but the film's tone is too uneven. On one hand, it's a straight mystery story with a jazz drummer becoming embroiled in a web of blackmail and mass murder when he accidentally stabs a stranger who's been following him. On the other, it's a surreal black comedy, loaded with oddball red herrings, like Bud Spencer as "God" and Jean-Pierre Marielle's camp detective who spouts offbeat dialogue and flirts outrageously. It's also an utterly illogical, almost plotless film of images; an excuse for Argento to indulge his arthouse leanings. While any of these three elements could work alone, they clash badly and fight against each other. The messy result is interesting if you're an Argento scholar and it's always a pleasure to see Mimsy Farmer on the screen, but this is actually quite a dull film to watch. Yes. Even with Mimsy, it's flimsy. Sorry. Couldn't resist. *1/2

Demons Never Die (2011)

Dir: Arjun Rose

A group of depressed high schoolers make a suicide pact and decide they'll all "go out in style" at an upcoming party. However, a helpful masked gentleman dressed in black shows up and picks them off one by one, thus removing the need for it. This is obviously an odd, slightly contradictory premise for a slasher but - in fairness - the script initially manages to sell it. The characters, while a little stereotypical, are passable and the dialogue is nice and naturalistic. It tackles a few heavy teen issues (suicide, bulimia, depression, grief, etc) in a slightly crass, surface-level way but that doesn't seem too troublesome until everything goes to pieces in the final reel. This combines direct scene lifts from "Scream" with gimmicky hand-held footage and a completely confusing, hideous misfire of a twist ending that devalues the whole thing. One of those "you'll never guess because it makes no sense" types. The movie was apparently made for £90,000 so you can forgive the ugly washed-out videography a little but there's no excuse for the dodgy writing. *1/2

The Devil's Rock (2011)

Dir: Paul Campion

The screenwriters of The Devil's Rock obviously did some interesting research on both witch trials in the Channel Islands and the Nazi occupation there many years later. There's a good idea somewhere in combining these two elements and having occult-obsessed Nazis on Guernsey messing with ancient grimoire and summoning a demon. Unfortunately, no one bothered to actually learn screenwriting technique. The script is an unstructured, leaden-paced mess devoid of characterisation and crammed with clunky dialogue that's heavy on exposition, low on sounding remotely natural and never tells us anything about the two leads beyond clichéd shortcuts and signposts (ie: "here's your cue to feel sorry for this guy because he has a dead wife"). It's never a good thing when there's more meat on the bones of the skinned corpses that litter the set than there is on the actual living characters. It's a pity because the acting and the (prosthetic) special effects are both way above average for this kind of low-budget product but the fact I'm even thinking of it as "product" kind of says it all. *

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have The Key (1972)

Dir: Sergio Martino

This damn-near perfect giallo is largely a three-hander, telling the story of an alcoholic, washed-up writer (Luigi Pistilli), his long-suffering wife (Anita Strindberg) and his sexpot niece (Edwige Fenech) who shows up to stay with them at their gothic villa. There's sex, violence, heavy sadomasochistic themes, (obviously) a black-gloved killer on the loose, a cat named Satan who may or may not be key to the mystery, and enough crossing, double-crossing and triple-crossing to satisfy the even most jaded (yellowed?) giallo buff. The simmering gothic atmosphere is soundtracked by a sumptuous Bruno Nicolai score, the photography is vibrantly imaginative and everything feels a cut above its peers; more artful, intelligent and thematically coherent. The acting is fantastic too, for a change. Fenech is on top form with a complicated character but even she is outshone by Strindberg, whose wide-eyed hysterical Irene is one of the best women-on-the-edge performances of the genre. A masterpiece. ****