Altre

Director: Eugenio Villani
Writer: Raffaele Palazzo
Producer: Eugenio Villani
Cast: Agnese Nano, Antonietta Bello
Year of release: 2017
Country: Italy
Reviewed from: online screener

Bearing the parenthetical English title Others Like You, Altre is a 22-minute Italian short which is intriguing, thought-provoking and slightly disturbing. A thoroughly polished production, it looks great and is carried by a pair of very fine performances.

The opening two minutes will hook you, before we hit our main story. Ester (Antonietta Bello: La Buca, The Space Between) is a young woman who thinks she might be pregnant, despite a recent, unspecified operation. Greta (the hugely experienced Agnese Nano, who was in Cinema Paradiso) is a stern family doctor who says Ester’s perceived ‘symptoms’ of pregnancy are just a side effect of the surgery.

Disappointed, Greta adopts then loses a kitten. Searching for the missing feline, she discovers something dark and alarming, a secret that Greta has been keeping. More detail than that it would be unfair to reveal, except that the underlying theme is one of motherhood.

Now, I would be lying if I said that I fully understood the ending of this film. But that did not lessen my enjoyment. I like a movie that makes me ask questions, that offers unclear answers, that hints at ideas and suggests possibilities. This sort of open-ended, stylish enigma is something that Italian cinema has always done very well, and Eugenio Villani has done it very well here.

Villani has been making short horror films for about six years now, and you can find most of his earlier work on his Vimeo channel. This film’s script was written by Raffaele Palazzo, an actor who was in Villani’s earlier short Haselwurm.

Altre was kindly sent to me by Emiliano Ranzani whose own short film Langliena I reviewed a few years back. Emiliano is one of three credited associate producers on Altre, along with DP Carlodavid Mauri whose photography is a major part of the film's success.

The version I was sent was labelled as not quite complete but, apart from a couple of minor typos in the (otherwise very good indeed) English subs, it looked pretty finished to me. It was shot near Turin in November 2015.

The film isn’t yet out on the circuit (in fact it’s not even on the IMDB yet) but I expect that it will soon start popping up at festivals across the globe. Catch it if you can.

MJS rating: A-

In a Lonely Place

Director: Davide Montecchi
Writers: Davide Montecchi, Elisa Giardini
Producer: Meclimone
Cast: Lucrezia Frenquellucci, Luigi Busignani
Country: Italy
Year of release: 2016
Reviewed from: online screener
Website: Facebook

Within the first couple of minutes of my viewing of this film, one thing became clear to me. In a Lonely Place has absolutely the best cinematography of any independent film that I have ever seen in my entire life. Shot after shot after shot is drop-dead gorgeous. Long shots, two-shots, close-ups, static shots, panning shots: you could take a hi-res frame-grab from almost any moment in this film, blow it up, frame it and hang it in a gallery.

The light, the shadow, the colours and oh so many reflections. Mirrors make extra work for cinematographers, obviously, but In a Lonely Place is packed with mirrors. Mirrors on walls, mirrors on the floor, mirrors in front of someone, mirrors behind someone, shattered mirrors, multiple mirrors in one shot. Holy cow, this is visually the most amazing thing you’ll see all year.

Fabrizio Pasqualetto is the man responsible, and if there isn’t an Oscar somewhere in that man’s future, I’ll eat my hat. He paints with light.

A tip of the hat also to camera operator Lino Hermaus, focus puller Matteo Franca and digital image technician Guido Zamagni. Between them these four gentlemen have crafted something stunningly beautiful.

This could be the first film review in history to mention the focus puller before the director but that’s just because I wanted to acknowledge the camera crew up front. The whole film is the vision of Davide Montecchi, and what a vision it is. There are only two actors and, to be honest, not a vast amount of dialogue when you consider that the film runs only 80 minutes (plus credits) and numerous lines are repeated over and over again. But that just leaves more room for the film to be ‘a film’, exploring the possibilities of cinema.

Describing the ‘plot’ of In a Lonely Place would be like synopsising a poem. It would completely miss the point and belittle the work. (“A guy gets freaked because a raven flies into his library while he’s having a nap, and it causes him to think about his dead girlfriend…”) Lucrezia Frenquellucci is Theresa, a young woman who has been invited to visit an empty hotel. Luigi Busignani is Thomas, the man who invited her there, an obsessive, mentally disturbed stalker.

We open with Theresa tied to a chair, and then follow two narratives. In the main story Thomas abuses and tortures Theresa, both physically and mentally. Interspersed with this are flashbacks of earlier in the evening as they share a meal, she dresses in one of the hotel rooms, and then he takes some photographs of her. One story leads up to that opening shot, one leads away from it.

I did say that summing up the story would belittle the film. The above paragraph makes In a Lonely Place sound like trashy (if good-looking) torture porn. There are hundreds of micro-budget, misogynist ‘horror’ films that have basically the same ‘plot’ (a few, a very few, are actually worth watching). But you know, the world is also full of representations of ‘a beautiful man with an amazing physique flashing his cock’: 99.999% of those are gay porn, and then there’s Michelangelo’s David. I’m not belittling the gay porn industry – I know some great guys who make gay porn films – I’m just demonstrating how a very simple, essential concept can, in the right hands, treated and viewed in a special way, become something with not just genuine artistic merit but the sort of work that transcends conventional concepts of art to become iconic.

Through a combination of Montecchi’s direction, Pasqualetto’s photography and two excellent actors (working in a foreign language) – plus the many other crew who contributed, of course – this movie takes something which could be (and often is) tawdry and cheap and turns it into a work of art. I’m not saying it is actually as ‘good’, on some impossible, hypothetical scale of artistic quality, as David because, bloody hell, Michelangelo. I just want people to understand that the narrative content of the film, which is limited in the first place and will be naturally brief in descriptions, short reviews, film festival catalogues or DVD sleeves, is not a fair summation of the cinematic experience here.

Adding to all of this is the amazing location: a huge, empty, modern hotel. A landscape shot shows nothing nearby except a power station (though that may have been digitally altered of course). The interiors, whether they are genuinely part of that building or studio creations, are amazing. The main room where the primary story takes place has been carefully arranged so that every square centimetre contributes to the film’s look and feel. This hotel is disused but not derelict. It is in a mysterious, transitory state between a vibrant, busy place and an empty ruin, which places the limited story and the two characters in a sort of limbo, divorced from the real, outside world.

Ivana Alessandrini was the set designer and has done an amazing job which Montecchi and Pasqualetto have then taken and turned into magic. (Tip of the hat also to set decorator Diana Fazi and set dresser Annalena Piri.) If you ever wondered what ‘mise-en-scene’ actually means, take a look here.

One more striking visual is Luigi Busignani himself who has a fascinating, angular face that you won’t soon forget. He speaks with a strong accent: stressing, each, word, separately. Sometimes he whispers, sometimes he shouts, but he never tips over into being a cartoon psychopath. Lucrezia Frenquellucci’s performance is one of confusion and vulnerability but with determination below the surface. Her character is, apparently, a model/actress so it makes sense that she is beautiful, but in an interesting, human way, not an airbrushed, formulaic, magazine sort of way. Theresa’s voice has been looped by Barbara Sirotti; perhaps Frenquellucci has too strong an accent.

There is some violence and injury on screen, with special make-up effects provided by Mauro Fabrizcky. Be warned that there is also a disturbing (but entirely fake) moment of animal cruelty.

I don’t know what else I can tell you about In a Lonely Place. It is an extraordinary film. A true cinematic experience. Take the opportunity to watch it if you can.

MJS rating: A+

Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad

Director: Pietro Francisci
Writer: Pietro Francisci
Producer: Angelo Faccenna
Cast: Robert Malcolm, Sonia Wilson, Spartaco Conversi
Country: Italy/Egypt
Year of release: 1973
Reviewed from: UK VHS

Isn’t it great that, in these days when everything seems to be available, when The Deathless Devil is on the racks in Tower Records, when Hanuman vs Seven Ultraman can be obtained with a handful of mouse-clicks for less than the price of two pints, that there are still old films awaiting rediscovery? One such is this little gem.

It is also a pleasure to find films which remain gloriously uncertain of their own titles. In this case, there are three questions. Is ‘caliph’ spelt with a PH or an F? Is ‘Baghdad’ spelt with a G or a GH? And is the main character’s name Sinbad or Simbad? The video sleeve has Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad; the on-screen title is Simbad and the Calif of Bagdad (which is also on the BBFC certificate); and the label on the tape calls it Simbad & Caliph of Bagdad. There are also Italian intermission cards in this print which carry the original title Simbad e il Califfo di Bagdad. ‘Simbad’ incidentally is not bad proof-reading or an attempt to avoid some feared copyright suit, it is a legitimate alternative spelling (as is Sindbad, of course).

Robert Malcolm (Three Fantastic Supermen in the Orient) is our hero, introduced at the end of a two-year sea voyage. He is suitably handsome and athletic and spends much of the film wearing nothing but a pair of grey swimming trunks. He has a neat beard and a bouffant hairdo and is dubbed by someone with a strong Italian accent.

But before we meet Sinbad, we witness the evil that is the Caliph of Baghdad. This insane despot likes to pick a beauty from his harem and have her dance for him - except that the Caliph is hiding behind a screen with a crossbow while the serene figure on the throne is actually a lookalike dummy. The young lady shimmies and shakes and then gets a bolt in the chest for her troubles, at which point she is picked up and carried away by the other dancers, who are evidently used to this sort of thing.

This is the only actual example of the Caliph’s cruelty which we witness although the implication is that there is much else. Two government ministers discuss (quietly) how bad the ruler has become, including the introduction of a new punishment called ‘the pole’: “a straight, round stick, pointed at one end, is inserted into the victim’s... well, you can see this drawing.” And we do!

I’ll call these ministers Abdul 1 and Abdul 2, as they will reappear later. Neither is actually called Abdul but there are no character names in the credits and I can’t make out any names clearly in the dialogue - and even if I could, I would be guessing at spellings. I can’t even tell if people are calling the main character Sinbad or Simbad. The more senior Abdul is played by Spartaco Conversy who, in some other films, was credited as Spean Convery, presumably because he bears (or at least, bore) a passing resemblance to a certain Scotsman. I wonder whether any Italian audiences ever actually fell for that one? Conversy was in loads of westerns including A Bullet for the General (with Klaus Kinski) and Umberto Lenzi’s One for All. He has an uncredited bit-part in Once Upon a Time in the West as a guy who gets shot through the foot.

Also in the palace is the evil Vizier, who controls the Caliph’s medication and has his eye on the throne. I think he’s played by Arturo Dominici (unless that’s Abdul 2). Dominici played Eurysteus in the original Steve Reeves Hercules (also directed by Pietro Francisci) and was also in Caltiki the Immortal Monster, Goliath and the Barbarians, Black Sunday, Castle of Blood, loads of other pepla and - good Lord! - a 1972 Italian remake of A for Andromeda! I’m assuming he is the Vizier because he generally played villains. (Even more interesting are his dubbing credits. He was the voice of: James Doohan in Star Trek II and III; Bernard Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun and Live and Let Die; Jose Ferrer in Dune; Billy Barty in Willow; and Bruce Forsyth in Bedknobs and Broomsticks!)

Checking images via Google, I think Abdul 2 is played by the brilliantly named Franco Fantasia, who also gets a credit as ‘fencing master’. He was assistant director on several notorious films such as Mountain of the Cannibal God and Eaten Alive and had acting or stunt roles in dozens of Italian swashbucklers and thrillers plus various horrors and even the odd sci-fi picture like Atomic Cyborg: Steel Warrior.

Anyway, when Sinbad returns to Baghdad he finds his adopted father (he was an orphan) has died and the house which he thought was home is being emptied of all possessions by the Caliph’s men. All that has been left for Sinbad is half of a parchment, with instructions to find the other half and “the large safe”. Out on the street and unsure where to go, he is befriended by a comic relief double act of two crooks who I will call Larry and Mo. Larry (Leo Valeriano) is small, shifty and wide-eyed in contrast to the taller, older, more lugubrious Mo (Gigi Bonos). They are cheerful but not terribly competent and yet they’re not nearly as irritating as comic relief characters often are, and in fact a few of their lines border on funny.

Gigi Bonos was in his sixties when he made this and had been in films since 1945. His credits include Castle of the Living Dead, Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 12+1 (a version of The 13 Chairs which stars Orson Welles and Tim Brooke-Taylor!), They Call Me Trinity (and stacks of other spaghetti westerns), Roman Polanski’s What?, Frankenstein 80, Three Supermen of the West, Mr Superinvisible, The Exorcist: Italian Style and an extraordinary-sounding sci-fi western called The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid. Leo Valeriano, in contrast, was making his screen debut but went on to make another 52 pictures and is now a big-name cabaret star in Italy.

They take Sinbad to an inn where they ply him with drugged wine and then sell him to a sea captain - who then has his men cosh Larry and Mo, taking back his money and acquiring three Shanghaied slaves instead of one. Sinbad comes to onboard the ship, where he is sent aloft as lookout while Larry and Mo work as scullery boy and cook. The rest of the crew are a gang of thuggish ruffians but Sinbad shows them he’s not to be trifled with.

A small boat approaches the ship and several comely maidens climb onboard, disappearing below deck. Director Pietro Francisci makes frequent use throughout the film of vertical movement as people scale ropes, step down into hatchways or plummet through trapdoors. The final maiden doesn’t have to climb a rope ladder like the others: she is lifted up serenely on a platform by a pulley. This is ‘Scheherazade, Crown Princess of Bahrain’ (Sonia Wilson), intended as a politically expedient bride for the Caliph, and she holds her nose as she passes the sweaty (but handsome) slave who is scrubbing the deck.

Of course Sinbad falls hopelessly in love with the princess so as soon as he has finished swabbing he heads down to the kitchen where he has Larry and Mo give him a bath in a cauldron of fresh water, before anointing himself with perfume from the galley spice rack. The girls are looked after by a camp eunuch (who, rather cruelly, wears a turban decorated with a small pair of scissors!); Sinbad drugs the eunuch’s food then steals his clothes in order to take the princess her meal. This eunuch is played by the noted American writer Eugene Walter, who had time to found the Paris Review, hang out with all sorts of famous people and generally become famous - there’s even a Eugene Walter festival, and yes, it is the same guy! - when he wasn’t making films like Juliet of the Spirits, Black Belly of the Tarantula, The House with Laughing Windows and The Pyjama Girl Case.

Discovered in the princess’ room, Sinbad is sentenced to death but she orders him spared so he is set adrift in a small boat, along with Larry and Mo. They wind up on a curious, barren island. One of the staples of the Sinbad legend is the curious, barren island which turns out to be the back of a giant sea monster. In this instance, although Sinbad spends some time examining the strange rock formations, the idea that this might be a monster is never raised and the three men successfully escape without them - or us - finding out. Perhaps the budget simply didn’t stretch to those sort of effects.

There are several wrecked ships on the island, including one with the skeletons of galley slaves still gruesomely chained to their oars. Another boat is Chinese in which they find not only explosive bombs but a hot air balloon, which they use to make their escape.

Back in Baghdad, the trio start to live like kings, using treasure which they purloined from the wrecked ships. Sinbad has his beard shaved but leave his moustache, prompting Abdul 1 and Abdul 2 (remember them?) to note that he is the Caliph’s double. At a slave auction, presided over by our old friend the eunuch, the Caliph is bidding; it seems that most people have no idea who he is because he rarely leaves the palace. Sinbad turns up wearing identical clothes but with a blue fez instead of the Caliph’s red one. A gang of revolutionaries try to attack the Caliph and in the confusion it’s Sinbad (knocked unconscious) who is taken back to the palace while Larry and Mo rescue the Caliph by accident. This is all part of the Abduls’ plan.

Things then start to get more complicated. Sinbad (posing as the Caliph), Larry, Mo and the Abduls gain entry to a treasure room containing a large safe, which proves to have not only vast amounts of treasure within but also the other half of Sinbad’s parchment. This reveals that he is the Caliph’s twin brother, spirited away after birth to avoid political complications. However, the team’s presence in the room is alerted to the Vizier who sends Sinbad, Larry and Mo plummeting through a hidden trapdoor into a water-filled well.

Although we don’t see their rescue, we are told of it later. The film nears its finish with the Caliph watching Scheherazade dance but he is interrupted by the intrusion of the Vizier who declares that he is assuming sovereignty - and takes a crossbow bolt to the chest for his trouble. (A curious character, the Vizier: clearly evil, yet he is trying to rid Baghdad of someone even more evil, which makes him almost good by comparison.)

However, the Caliph has been tricked. That fake Caliph on the throne is not a dummy but his long-lost twin brother and the two indulge in a sword fight which is very well edited and only spoiled slightly by the body double with his back to the camera having much shorter hair than Robert Malcolm. There are also two extremely well-done split-screen shots with Sinbad and the Caliph face-to-face, one of which actually has the sword in Sinbad’s hand pressed against the chest of his brother. My guess is that this was achieved by having the sword fixed in place, probably with a pole sticking out from the scenery behind it. At least, that’s how I would do it...

Having disposed of the evil Caliph, Sinbad then has to face a squad of soldiers outside, commanded by a general who was previously holding allegiance to the Vizier. He now announces that no-one from the Caliph’s dynasty should rule, but the day is saved by Larry and Mo in the hot air balloon, dropping Chinese bombs on the soldiers from above.

What a corking adventure. It’s all just over-the-top enough to work as a good Sinbad adventure should. Above all, it looks gorgeous, thanks to location work in Egypt and the use of Eastmancolor stock (called ‘Telecolor’ here). The film is ‘An Umberto Russo di Pagliara production for Buton Film SpA with the collaboration of the General Egyptian Cinematographic Organisation.’

Also in the cast are Paul Oxon (The Slasher is the Sex Maniac - a film which share quite a number of cast and crew with this one), Maria Luigia Biscardi, Mark Davis (the acting pseudonym of screenwriter Gianfranco Clerici: Don’t Torture a Duckling, L’Anticristo, Cannibal Holocaust, The New York Ripper, Monster Shark, Phantom of Death etc), Eva Maria Grubmuller, Carla Mancini (the third victim in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, also in All the Colors of the Dark, What Have You Done to Solange?, Baba Yaga Devil Witch, Flesh for Frankenstein, Flavia the Heretic and more than 150 other movies) and Alessandro Perrella (Death Walks at Midnight, The French Sex Murders, Seven Dead in the Cat’s Eye, Dr Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks).

This was the last feature directed by Pietro Francisci, seven years after his previous one, oddball sci-fi flick 2+5: Mission Hydra (aka Star Pilot). He is best known of course, for launching Steve Reeves’ career - and the whole peplum genre - with Hercules and Hercules Unchained although he had previously made some other historicals including The Queen of Sheba and Attila the Hun. He died in 1977. Cinematographer Gino Santini’s many spaghetti western credits include Django the Bastard and a film which looks like it should belong in the Mirror Universe - Inghilterra Nuda, an Italian mondo film about Britain! Other notable crew members include costume designer Maria Luisa Panaro (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance), supervising editor Otello Colangeli (Operation Kid Brother, Mr Superinvisible, Castle of Blood, The Virgin of Nuremburg, lots of pepla and Antonio Margheriti’s 1960s sci-fi movies), assistant director Renzo Girolami (Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks), sound technician Roberto Alberghini (Puma Man, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, Castle Freak, Mind Ripper, Argento’s Phantom of the Opera) and hair stylist Silvi Vittoria (Short Night of the Glass Dolls, Death Laid an Egg).

Composer Alessandro Alessandroni’s cool list of credits includes A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Devil’s Nightmare, The Strangler of Vienna, Lady Frankenstein and, um, SS Extermination Camp. Rather cheekily, the use of a stock recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade means that Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic also get a credit - which would probably surprise them if they knew.

Special effects, which don’t extend much beyond a model hot air balloon on a rather visible wire, are by Paolo Ricci whose career extends from Django the Bastard in the late 1960s through The Sexorcist, Mountain of the Cannibal God, Big Alligator River, Fulci’s The Black Cat, 2019: After the Fall of New York, The Atlantis Interceptors etc right through to 2003’s The Accidental Detective.

Currently unavailable in English, except on old VHS tapes like this one, Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad is good, clean fun. The production values are surprisingly good and mention must be made of the way that a slight rocking motion is imparted to every single scene onboard the ship, above or below decks. It would be nice to seem someone pick this one up for DVD release, maybe with contributions from some of the surviving participants. I have no doubt that it will happen eventually.

MJS rating: B+
Review originally posted 28th March 2006

The Shunned House

Director: Ivan Zuccon
Writers: Ivan Zuccon, Enrico Saletti
Producer: Valerio Zuccon
Cast: Giuseppe Lorusso, Federica Quaglieri, Emanuele Cerman
Year of release: 2003
Country: Italy
Reviewed from: screener DVD

Ivan Zuccon, without a doubt the most exciting young genre director in Italy, has stuck with the works of HP Lovecraft for this, his third feature. But whereas The Darkness Beyond and Unknown Beyond were generically Lovecraftian, La Casa Sfuggita (co-scripted with Unknown Beyond writer Enrico Saletti) adapts three specific HPL short stories.

Rather than a straightforward anthology, however, Zuccon and Saletti have set all three tales in the same building, interweaving them to achieve a dreamlike sense of horror. So in the present day we have paranormal journalist Alex (Giuseppe Lorusso) and his sceptic girlfriend Rita (Federica Quaglieri) in an adaptation of ‘The Shunned House’ itself. Alex is investigating an old inn which has seen scores of mysterious, often violent deaths over the previous three centuries. Much to Rita’s displeasure, they are going to camp out in the derelict building until Alex has finished his research.

In the same building, 50-60 years earlier, Luigi Montella (Emanuele Cerman) is a young mathematician, who is investigating the non-Euclidean geometry of the inn’s plans and playing chess against his neighbour Nora (Silvia Ferreri). This part of the film is based on ‘Dreams in the Witch House.’ Finally, right back in the 1920s, a writer name Marco del Vespro (Michael Segal - not the British actor who was in I Claudius etc) becomes bewitched by the haunting violin music emanating from the next room, where lives the beautiful but mute Carlotta Zann (Cristiana Vaccaro). That’s ‘The Music of Eric Zann.’

With three stories set in different times - perhaps more: who/what/when is that mysterious masked figure? - The Shunned House is not an easy film to follow, which is entirely in keeping with the complexities of Lovecraft’s work. Zuccon (who also edited the film) doesn’t just mix smoothly between stories; the whole point of the film is that these three tales interact, as characters from one time see/hallucinate those from another. It would be pointless for me to be specific; the film must be seen as a whole.

And there’s blood. And dead people. And people get killed in awful ways. This is a horror film in the grand tradition and confirms Zuccon’s place as the natural successor to Lucio Fulci. Luigi may be a somnambulist child-killer; Rita sees dead people; there’s a mysterious girl repeatedly hitting her bleeding forehead against a wall; and when Carlotta’s last violin string breaks... Christ, it’s horrible! It all comes together in a bloody, scary conclusion.

Zuccon’s camera, often roaming around a room, brings the audience right into the world(s) of these people. There is nothing workmanlike here. Every shot is just right: the angle, the movement, the lighting, the cutting. It’s just a shame that this was shot on video and not film. Please, someone give Ivan Zuccon the budget to shoot in 35mm!

The cast all cope well with the English dialogue. Particularly notable are Cerman (also in both Beyond films, as was Segal) whose boyish good looks and sensitive-yet-unnerving performance reminded me of Brendan Fraser in The Passion of Darkly Noon, and Vaccaro, who overcomes (in fact, uses) her lack of dialogue to bring exceptional depth to her role as the troubled violinist. Massimo Storari’s make-up effects are as gruesome as ever, and kudos also to costume designer Donatella Ravagnini and set designer Roberta Romagnoli, and indeed everyone involved with this marvellous film.

Ultimately, what does it all mean? I’m not 100 per cent certain (and I’ve read the script!) but frankly the film wouldn’t be true to the Lovecraftian source material if I was. It is all (I think) connected with the mathematics of the inn’s design, thus putting The Shunned House into the tiny subgenre of mathematical fantasy horror, along with the brilliant Pi, the disappointing Solid Geometry, and a handful of other titles. I think that ultimately the building itself is ‘the monster’, much like The Fall of the House of Usher or The Shining. But I strongly suggest that you take any opportunity to see this film and decide for yourself.

MJS rating: A
(Warning: this film contains some scenes with strobe effects.)

Addendum: The Shunned House is now available on DVD in the UK from Salvation. The disc includes an ‘original trailer’ (a short teaser), an ‘international trailer’, four short deleted scenes, a stills gallery and two essays by Salvation boss Nigel Wingrove. The one about HP Lovecraft is okay but the one about Italian horror is rather a waste, saying nothing about why the genre flourished in Italy or why horror fans hold spaghetti spook-flicks in such high regard. Also, the text of the essays is small and hard to read and, on my machine at least, flickers somewhat.

The extras are rather difficult to navigate and I found myself having to go back sometimes because of the confusing and inconsistent navigation system. (I know this is picky, especially as I was given the disc for free by Ivan, but it’s irritating and would be easy to solve for future releases.)

Also on the disc are trailers for The Bunker (which was written by Clive Dawson) and The Playgirls and the Vampire (an odd pairing of films!), a Jake West-directed video for a song called ‘White Slave’ by The Nuns (all gothic lesbian fetish vampires - quelle surprise!) and Philip Ilson’s rather dull short Blood.

Review originally posted 5th December 2004

The Seven Magnificent Gladiators

Director: Bruno Mattei
Writer: Claudio Fragasso
Producer: Alexander Hacohen (on screen), Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus (on box)
Cast: Lou Ferrigno, Sybil Danning, Brad Harris, Dan Vadis
Year of release: 1983
Country: Italy
Reviewed from: UK video (Guild, 1985)

The title, I Sette Magnifici Gladiatori, says it all really: this is The Magnificent Seven in Ancient Rome. The marvelously named Dan Vadis is the villainous Nicerote, all cape and codpiece, who holds a village in fear through regular raiding parties with his bandits. The local priestess (Nicerote’s mother) sends village girl Pandora (Carla Ferrigno) to Rome, equipped with a magic sword, to find one suitable to wield it.

That one turns out to be Barbarian slave, former Incredible Hulk and Carla’s hubby, Lou Ferrigno, who defeats Centurion Brad Harris in a chariot race but defies the Emperor’s order to slay his opponent. Lou and Brad gather five compatriots including the glorious Sybil Danning (also in another Magnificent Seven rip-off, Battle Beyond the Stars) whose costumes are worth the price of admission alone.

Once the seven arrive at the village, the film sticks slavishly (as it were!) to its source - which was of course itself an unofficial remake of The Seven Samurai - with Nicerote driven off then returning for a final showdown, resulting in the deaths of four of the seven.

An unashamed attempt by Cannon to recreate 1960s Italian pepla, this generally works and is undemanding fun. Stars Harris (The Fury of Hercules, Goliath Against the Giants) and Vadis (Triumph of Hercules) provide a direct link to the original subgenre, and both still stand up well, though they were 50 and 45 when this film was made (Vadis died a few years later). Director Mattei, though better known for stuff like Zombie Creeping Flesh (also written by Fragasso, whose later works include the dire Troll 2) and SS Experiment Camp, actually started out as an editor on films like Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators (which starred Dan Vadis).

Danning, Ferrigno and Harris worked together on another latter-day peplum for Cannon - Luigi Cozzi’s Hercules, shot the same year. Also watch out for Mandy Rice-Davies, of Profumo scandal notoriety, as the Emperor’s favourite.

With Ferrigno’s torso vying for screen time with Danning’s cleavage, there truly is something here for everybody to enjoy.

MJS rating: B
review originally posted 20th March 2005

My Little Sister

Directors. Maurizio and Roberto del Piccolo
Writer. Roberto del Piccolo
Producers: Maurizio del Piccolo, Elenoroa Turri
Cast: Holli Dillon, David White, Saverio Percudani
Country: Italy
Year of release: 2015
Reviewed from: Online screener
Website: www.moviedel.com

This is the third feature from the del Piccolo brothers who previously brought us the British The Hounds and the Anglo-Italian Evil Souls. This one is solely Italian although the dialogue is all in English (with a variety of accents).

As such, we can count this as part of the Italian Horror Revival, a reinvention of traditional cinematic conventions as groundbreaking – and as consistently ignored – as the more familiar (to readers of this site) British Horror Revival. Just as 21st century British horror film-makers have reacted against the gothic tradition, refusing to slavishly copy creaky old Hammer tropes, themes and imagery, so too have their Italian counterparts marked out new territory, unbeholden to the works of Argento, Bava et al.

To put it simply, we don’t need any new Argento films because we already have the old Argento films, just like we don’t need any new Hammer films because we already have all the old Hammer films. And yet vast amounts of print and pixels are devoted to each new feature from Dario (with Alan Jones inevitably touting it as a return to form, apparently assuming people will forget he said the same thing about the previous flops…) just like the press fell over themselves to lavish attention and praise on The Woman in Black, hailing it as some sort of rebirth of British horror cinema when it was actually an anachronistic throwback artificially bolstered with a stuntcast leading man.

To put it even more simply: film-makers in Italy are making terrific movies that you’ve never heard of, just like film-makers over here are. Principal among these are of course the films of my pal Ivan Zuccon but he’s absolutely not a lone voice. There are a lot of horror movies being made in Italy right now, many of which have little or no impact outside of their home territory. You have to search for these things.

(The IMDB lists 129 Italian horror features released between 2011 and 2016 but of course some of those are international co-productions that aren’t strictly speaking Italian while others are unfinished and possibly unstarted. Nevertheless I’d love to see Domiziano Christopharo’s Hyde’s Secret Nightmare, Luciano Onetti’s Francesca, Lorenzo Bianchini’s Across the River, Luca Boni and Marco Ristori’s Eaters, Raffaele Picchio’s Morituris, Anotonio Micciulli’s Tempo di Reazione, Tommaso Agnese and Gabriele Albanesi’s Italian Ghost Stories, Domi Cutrona’s Dark Red Blood, Brando Impota’s 46 Wounds, Alessio Nencioni’s Possessione Demoniaca, Lucas Pavetto’s Lui Non Esiste, and of course Alan Cossettini’s Sharracuda. Viva la rinascita dell'horror Italiano!)

The Brothers del Piccolo certainly have an advantage over many of their compatriots in how their British connections increase their visibility on the global horror stage. I’ve still not seen The Hounds but I enjoyed Evil Souls and I enjoyed My Little Sister also. Here’s why.

Truth be told, there’s not a great deal of story in this taut, 75-minute slasher. There’s not exactly a huge amount of characterisation and really very little dialogue indeed (even if your definition of dialogue includes screams). What you will find here is lashings of tension, some real horror and a refreshing attitude towards the clichés that bedevil so many similar films.

One image in particular stands out. You may remember (or you may not; on the balance of probability the latter is more likely) that in my review of The Other Side of the Door I bemoaned the tendency of horror film soundtracks to emphasise spooky imagery with music stings. As a monster scuttles across the corridor in the background, a massive chord always seems to crash onto the soundtrack, ostensibly underlining the horror but actually robbing the imagery of its intended effect. Well, there is a shot in My Little Sister, inside a tent, in which we see an unidentified silhouette, carrying an axe, cross the rear canvas. It’s only brief, the characters don’t notice it and thankfully neither does the composer. And the very absence of any sort of musical recognition makes it much, much more frightening than it would be if there was an accompanying orchestral “D’naaaaa!” Horror movie soundtracks: less is more, folks. Less. Is. More.

So: a young couple go camping in the woods. They are expecting to meet three friends in the selected clearing but, though the tents are there, the folks are not. A creepy guy with an axe warns them to pack and leave because of a local (male) psycho named ‘Little Sister’ but they dismiss his concerns. They have also spotted (and laughed at) a mad woman with bandaged wrists wandering around the forest.

Those three friends, we may reasonably surmise, were the three folks whom we saw tortured by a nutter in the prologue. He wears a padded anorak and a mask made of human skin and likes to peel people’s faces off. His name is Igor, and he is our protagonist.

Well, before too long, Igor/Little Sister has the boyfriend trussed up, ready for a face-slicing. The middle act is a very well handled game of cat and mouse as the girlfriend creeps around Igor’s house and outbuildings, trying to avoid him while staying close enough that she might be able to effect a rescue.

Igor’s back-story is revealed in some convenient home movies which are being watched by a silent figure in a wheelchair. Over the course of the film we gradually learn more about Igor’s family and background, without any need for dialogue or explanation. The whole thing culminates in one of his victims taking a gamble on doing something utterly horrific in an attempt to trick Igor, taking advantage of his diminished mental faculties. It’s an audacious move for both character and film-makers which helps, along with other clever twists, to distinguish this from the many generic rent-a-slasher features out there.

The solid cast includes David White (Apocalypse Z, Zombie Massacre 2) and Holli Dillon (who was in Evil Souls and Steve Look’s 2011 zombie short Night of the Loving Dead). The brothers’ regular DP Tommaso Borgstrom does his usual fine work. The make-up effects are by someone named Chiara MechanicDoll!

My Little Sister is a superior slasher and a fine addition to the brothers' steadily building body of work, as well as to the Italian Horror Revival. If your idea of Italian horror is some creaky old giallo from the 1970s, here is a chance to see what modern spaghetti nightmares are really like.

No distribution has been announced yet.

MJS rating: B+

Evil Souls

Directors: Roberto and Maurizio Del Piccolo

Writers: Roberto and Maurizio Del Piccolo

Producers: Roberto Del Piccolo, Lisa Marrs

Cast: Holli Dillon, Peter Cosgrove, Julian Boote

Country: UK/Italy

Year of release 2015

Reviewed from: online screener

Website: www.facebook.com/evilsoulsthemovie

Evil Souls is as fine a slice of Anglo-Italian Satanic torture-porn as you are likely to encounter anywhere. The first act builds atmosphere, the second develops plot and character, and the last half-hour is an intensification which grips the viewer even as it occasionally pauses for some awesome visuals. I’m not entirely sure it makes a whole heap of sense – but when did Italian horror ever make much sense?

This is the second feature from brothers Roberto and Maurizio Del Piccolo, who previously brought us The Hounds. Shot in Italy in English, with an Anglo-Italian cast, it’s a production of their London-based company Moviedel with involvement from their Milan-based company Moviedel Italia. The IMDB lists this as a UK film but it’s clearly an international co-production.

Holli Dillon (who was in horror shorts Needles and Night of the Loving Dead) plays Jess Taylor, who comes home one evening to find her son missing and the baby-sitter very murdered indeed. Knocked unconscious, she comes around chained up in the lair of stone-cold nutjob Valentine, gloriously overacted by Peter Cosgrove (also in George Clarke’s Splash Area). With his long hair, short beard and foppish taste for 18th century frock-coats, Valentine sees himself as a disciple of the Marquis de Sade, although he actually looks like Sam Rockwell in the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie.

Also chained up, and wondering where her (somewhat delinquent) son has gone, is Susan Papworth (Paolo Maciadi). When Susan and Jess realise that they were childhood friends, they also realise that their captor is not a random sociopath but has singled them out for some reason connected with their past.

Meanwhile, two other childhood pals whose paths long ago diverged become reacquainted when Father Albert (Julian Boote: Dead Room, KillerSaurus) finds wasted whore Maddie (Lisa Holsappel-Marrs, also executive producer along with Roberto) on the steps of his church. Gradually, the pieces of the mystery start to fit together, although for every revelation there’s something else thrown into the mix that’s never explained (for example, Valentine and Jess both have visions of being in a vineyard).

Valentine takes great delight in taunting and mistreating the women, occasionally resorting to Saw-style torture devices, but actually I was being unfair at the top of the review when I called this ‘torture porn’ because Evil Souls is well beyond that past-its-sell-by-date subgenre.

Boote’s priest is the cement binding the story together as he investigates the pasts of his former friends and uncovers some sort of demonic prophecy (or something) that relates to Susan’s and Jess’ sons (in some way). It was probably not necessary to tie this into historical figures of evil (including Hitler, of course); that angle gives the story no more gravitas and slightly cheapens what is otherwise a solidly crafted and undeniably impressive low-budget horror.

The film certainly doesn’t skimp on the gore with numerous characters subjected to genuinely horrific injuries, depicted by well executed make-up effects from Nicole Rossin and Serena Caiani. The whole thing is well-photographed by Tommaso Borgstrom who also shot The Hounds; many years ago he was camera assistant on Frankenstein Unbound! The screenplay is credited to Roberto based on a story by both brothers; Maurizio cut the picture. Paolo Bernardini provided the score which effectively supports the visual horrors.

Stage actress Irina Lorandi makes a fine impression in her one brief scene as a prostitute; the cast also includes Catherine Brookes (The Hounds), Federico Rossi (who was in a 2012 post-apocalyptic feature called New Order), Sean James Sutton (Spidarlings) and Roberto di Stano (who is in an Italian Rocky Horror performance group!) as a homeless guy.

The picture was shot in the town of Muzzana del Turgnano (inbetween Udine and Trieste) in January 2014 (with pick-ups in October) and premiered at the Fantafestival in Rome in June 2015.

Is this British enough to count as part of the BHR? I think so, subject to further investigation (the poster calls it ‘A MovieDel UK Production. Associate Producer MovieDel Italy’). It seems to strike a good balance between the realism of the British Horror Revival and the fantasy of the Italian Horror Revival, and fans of either national cinema (or both) will enjoy it.

MJS rating: B+

Unknown Beyond

Director: Ivan Zuccon
Writer: Enrico Saletti
Producer: Valerio Zuccon
Cast: Emanuele Cerman, Giorgia Bassano, Robert Marrelli
Year of release: 2001
Country: Italy
Reviewed from: VHS screener
Official website: www.ivanzuccon.com

Italian horror cinema has a long and proud history. In no other country has horror been such an intrinsic part of national cinema. Not fantasy (there’s plenty of that too but it’s best left alone) or science fiction (again, best avoided) but genuine, scary, bloody horror. Italian horror movies date back to the silent era but really came of age in the 1950s, just as horror was also coming to the fore in the UK and on the seedier side of Hollywood. Argento, Fulci, Bava pere et fils, Michele Soavi, even trash barons like Ruggero Deodato or good old Joe D’Amato - what other country has produced so many iconic scare merchants over the years?

I say let’s add Ivan Zuccon to that list. And let’s add him up there at the better end with Fulci, Argento (when he was good) et al. Because Unknown Beyond confirms that The Darkness Beyond was no flash in the pan. Zuccon is a major horror talent and he’s here to stay (for further proof, check out his third feature, The Shunned House).

Darkness was written by Ivan himself but this semi-sequel was scripted by Enrico Saletti so there’s something of a change in tone, though it’s still unashamedly Lovecraft-ian. It’s a more complex story, with more characters - there’s more action and more interaction. Also a whole heap of religious iconography, stirring up that whole Catholic guilt thing that underlines some of the best Italian horror. The opening sequence is amazing as a stumbling soldier comes across a crucified man and, at his feet, a pram containing a crying baby which, on inspection, turns out to be a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Blood drips from the sky, then rises back to Heaven. What the jiminy is going on?

One thing which Unknown Beyond definitely shares with its predecessor is a dreamlike structure which plays fast and loose with causality and the sequence of events, indeed with reality itself. The Old Ones-engineered supernatural apocalypse that we glimpsed in the first film has enveloped the world, but now we are a generation on and Captain Ian Hicks (the ever reliable Emanuele Cerman) leads a small band of survivors hiding out in some catacombs.

Cerman was Private Randolph Carter in The Darkness Beyond - and Hicks is having dreams in which he is called by that name. Is he the same character? Who knows? Locked up in a cell in the catacombs is a painted-face witch, Keziah (Roberta Marrelli, who was Elena in the first film), who serves the Old Ones and seeks to seduce Hicks. Meanwhile two members of the group, Valerie (Liliana Letterese) and Pickman (Alessio Pascuti - Private Walker in Darkness) have gone missing.

Walker turns up, transformed into a mad demon but roped and held by two of the soldiers. For a moment the film looks remarkably like the scene with the captive zombie in 28 Days Later but I’m sure that’s coincidental as it’s unlikely that Alex Garland or Danny Boyle would have seen Ivan’s film. Walker is locked up in another cell.

Valerie, wandering across the desert at night, is gripped by hands from under the sand and raped by something unseen. She subsequently slakes her thirst at a river of blood, from which she fills her canteen. A day or so later she is back with the main group.

Hicks has translated some surviving parchments (possibly the ones created by Al-Caleb in the first film’s prologue) and knows that the only way to defeat the Old Ones is to find the Necronomicon. He sets out with two comrades, Alan (Piergiorgio Schiona) and Boris (Francesco Malaspina - Darkness Beyond’s Sgt Clark). Back in the catacombs, the swiftly pregnant Valerie gives birth to an ultra-fast growing cocoon from which emerges, only minutes later, a full-grown man. Played by Michael Segal, the first film’s Lieutenant Salgari, this character is credited as ‘il figlio dell’Altrove’ - ‘son of the beyond.’ Indeed, the Italian title of this film is Maelstrom: Il Figlio dell’Altrove (the working English title was Call of the Beyond). He proceeds to bloodily slaughter his way through the cast.

What the film is leading up to, via some quite startling imagery, is a three-way battle between Segal’s character and the unborn children carried by sole survivor Anouk (Giorgia Bassano - that’s not a spoiler by the way as she’s not identified by name until late in the film) and Keziah. Three will be conceived, the prophecy states, but only one will survive to become heir to the Old Ones...

With an extra twenty minutes’ running time over the first film, Unknown Beyond can cram more in and that may be why it seems slightly less languorous (or more hurried, depending on how you look at it). The main characters are well-defined and we care about what happens to them - although I’m still not certain about Keziah the witch. Marrelli comes close to overacting sometimes in a role which is, I think, a difficult one for foreign audiences to grasp.

There are some amazing setpieces, including a whole field of tortured souls on cross-frames, and also more action with some well-choreographed fight sequences. This film is more obviously shot on video than Ivan’s first movie, and is almost entirely set at night: a couple of scenes about 50-60 minutes in are the only daylight exteriors in the whole film. Sometimes initially confusing, the plot does unravel well, revealing hidden motivations: “Deception has always been evil’s stock-in-trade,” says one character, observantly. Although this film shares numerous cast and crew with The Darkness Beyond the actual plot connections are tangential and watching the first film is not necessary to enjoy this one. Though I would of course heartily recommend watching both just because they’re so good! (A tip of the hat also to Nicola Morali whose music perfectly creates the spooky, unnerving mood that the film requires. Nicola kindly sent me a CD of the Unknown Beyond soundtrack a while back and it’s a truly excellent piece of work.)

There was a time when Italian horror cinema was the finest in the world. But the last spaghetti scarer to really achieve international acclaim with critics and audiences was Michele Soavi’s superb Dellamorte Dellamore and that was nine years ago. Since then, what have we had? Pupi Avati’s obscure The Arcane Sorcerer, Sergio Stivalleti subbing for the late Fulci on Wax Mask, Massimiliano Cerchi’s laughably inept Creatures from the Abyss and Satan Claus, Argento treading water with The Stendhal Syndrome, Phantom of the Opera and Nonhosonno - and let’s not even mention the justifiably derided Fatal Frames. The genre needs a shot in the arm - and here it is.

Unknown Beyond confirms the arrival of a startling new talent. Ivan Zuccon is the best thing to happen to Italian horror, arguably to horror cinema in general, in a long, long time.

MJS rating: A-

Review originally posted 5th December 2004

Troll

Director: John Carl Buechler
Writer: Ed Naha
Producer: Albert Band
Cast: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Jenny Beck, June Lockhart
Year of release: 1985
Country: USA/Italy
Reviewed from: UK rental tape (Entertainment in Video, 1986)

I can’t believe that this incredible movie has been sitting in my to-be-watched pile for years (despite my having interviewed both writer and director back in my SFX days).

SEE! Sonny Bono mutate into a giant maggot! COUNT! The stars from Battlestar Galactica, Lost in Space, Charlie’s Angels and V! HEAR! One of Hollywood’s top short actors recite The Faerie Queen! OGLE! A pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus running around clad only in a few vine leaves! WATCH! A woman turn into her own daughter! STARE! At a short, fat, ugly, hairy monster reading Fangoria!

And to give it that extra sheen of retrospective surrealism, the young boy who saves the world from the powers of darkness is called... Harry Potter! Extraordinary!

The story starts with the Potter family moving into a San Francisco apartment building. Michael Moriarty (from the superb Q the Winged Serpent, and later in Law and Order and Psi Factor) is book-reviewer dad Harry Sr; sometime Angel Shelley Hack is mum Anne; 14-year-old Noah Hathaway (yes, Boxey from Battlestar) is son Harry Jr; and eleven-year-old Jenny Beck (young Elizabeth in V) is daughter Wendy, who wanders into the building’s basement, where she is zapped by a troll with a magic ring.

The troll is played by little person Phil Fondacaro (who has been in everything - Ghoulies II, Return of the Jedi, Decadent Evil - but whose most memorable role was possibly the tiny Dracula in The Creeps) in a full-body suit with a range of replaceable animatronic heads, each with a basic expression (smile, roar, etc) and a lot of additional movement. This was all created by director (and legendary special effects man) John Carl Buechler (it’s interesting to spot Howard Berger’s name in the credits too, years before he became the B in KNB FX). However, the troll transforms into a clone of Wendy which gives Beck full license to scream, growl, throw stuff around and contrast the mayhem nicely with the sweet, blonde thing she’s supposed to be. (There are many far worse child actors than Beck, who seems to have disappeared after about 1991 - wonder where she is now?)

Also in the building are lounge lizard Peter Dickinson (Sonny Bono: post-singer, pre-mayor), wannabe hunter Barry Taybor (daytime soap star Gary Sandy), actress Jeanette Cooper (Louis-Dreyfus, looking exactly like she did in Seinfeld), bone cancer-suffering literature professor Malcolm Malory (Fondacaro again, out of costume) and spooky old landlady Eunice St Clair (Lost in Space’s Lockhart). The troll, disguised as Wendy, infiltrates their apartments and takes them over: Dickinson becomes a disgusting giant maggot which then cracks open to reveal a dozen or so smaller troll-like beasties (vocalised by voice legend Frank Welker), Cooper becomes a wood-nymph, etc.

Young Harry Potter befriends Miss St Clair, who turns out to be a witch, protecting the world from the global domination plans of the fairies, as led by her former lover Tauroc, transformed into the troll. Unfortunately, the Potters moved into the building on Walpurgis Night, thereby setting Tauroc free. (St Clair has a strange mushroom-with-a-face called Galwyn and a painting of John Carl Buechler on her wall!) Transforming into a younger version of herself (played, in a simple yet brilliant bit of casting, by Lockhart’s daughter Anne), Miss St Clair goes up against Tauroc but is turned into a talking tree-stump. It’s up to Harry Potter to defeat the troll, rescue his sister and return the world to normal.

Troll was an original idea by Buechler, but the script was rewritten by former Fangoria editor Naha who receives sole credit. Harry has a poster for Buechler’s The Dungeonmaster on his wall and the troll/Wendy reads Fango in bed! The movie was made (over five and a half weeks, in Rome) by Empire Pictures, the straight-to-video company run by Albert and Charles Band before Charlie (credited here as executive producer) set up Full Moon. Watch for Band Jr and Sr in a couple of spoof clips from Pod People from the Planet Mars which Harry watches on TV.

This certainly isn’t the terrible picture that some people paint it, and if you’re a fan of prosthetic effects it’s a veritable smorgasbord - the troll costume itself is excellent. It’s good fun for kids, has some nice touches for adults, but mostly, it’s just bizarre, with the story giving the impression of having been pulled in various directions by different hands. It’s also a relic of a bygone era (17 or 18 years ago!) when this sort of movie could get made. If this is in your to-be-watched pile, slap it into your VCR tonight! (But beware the dire Italian rip-off Troll 2 which has no connection with this film.)

MJS rating: B

(This UK rental copy, incidentally, has barnstorming trailers for the utterly bonkers Eliminators, the deeply silly TerrorVision and the gobsmacking Starchaser: The Legend of Orin. Starchaser was of course the only feature-length animation ever released in true 3D - I saw a stereoscopic print at the NFT once and it was great! This trailer quotes a review which calls the film “better than Rainbow Brite and The Black Cauldron combined”!)

Reactor

Director: ‘Al Bradly’ (Alfonso Brescia)
Writers: ‘Al Bradly and Alan Rawton’ (Alfonso Brescia and Aldo Crudo)
Producer: ‘Lewis Allenby’ (Luigi Alessi)
Cast: Antonio Sabato, Yanti Somer, ‘Melissa Long’ (Malisa Longo)
Year of release: 1978
Country: Italy
Reviewed from: UK VHS (Mogul)

Reactor is unrepentant rubbish from start to finish. Even by the standards of Italian late 1970s sci-fi movies - which are not high - this is bobbins. The normally reliable Delirium magazine recommended this as so-bad-it’s-good but let me assure you, it ain’t. I laughed a few times at the sheer ineptitude, but mostly I was shouting at my TV, “For God’s sake, please make it stop!”

Some idea of how cut-price this piece of dreck is can be gleaned from the following fact: the spaceship is called the Trissi, so all the crew have the word ‘Trissi’ on their spacesuits - this is actually because the ‘spacesuits’ are ski-suits loaned by a company called Trissi Sportswear. If the producers had spent a bit more, the action could have taken place on the starship Adidas!

Professor Carr and his glamorous lab assistant Lois (‘Melissa Long’, ie. Malisa Longo: Salon Kitty, Nightmare Concert, Thor the Conqueror), who are constantly referred to as a sort of gestalt entity - ProfessorCarrandhisassistantLois - even by their closest friends, are kidnapped by aliens. “A gang of aliens has kidnapped ProfessorCarrandhisassistantLois,” says a co-worker, “I actually saw it happen.” It’s amazing how a film so laden with clunky exposition can nevertheless make not the slightest bit of sense.

The aliens all wear silver costumes and have bad gold wigs, and head off in a flying saucer. Unfortunately, the Prof’s latest experiment - something to do with creating life - involves a nuclear reactor (hence the English title) and no-one except the Prof knows how to switch it off! Unless he can be rescued, the reactor will explode, destroying the entire city in eight days, fourteen hours and three minutes (they’re very precise about this).

The spaceship Trissi sets off, commanded by Captain John Boyd (Antonio Sabato: Bronx Warriors 2) who is enamoured of ‘HisassistantLois’ and oblivious to the torch carried for him by one of his crew, Julia (Yanti Somer: Battle of the Stars). Repairing a defence satellite knocked out by the aliens, Boyd determines the location of their home planet, which is: “North Pole Earth, ninety degrees west and eight-ten North.” Whether the dialogue was as inept in the original Italian is not something I can comment on. At least, not politely.

Also on board is a chap with a blond bubble perm whose character name is never mentioned but who seems to be second in command. He is supposedly from Texas which is quite a shock as the dubbing actor has the most extraordinary accent. It’s as if a Texan accent has been written phonetically and then read out loud by someone who has never even heard of Texas.

The Trissi lands on the planet Azar where the exploratory party are attacked by some barbarian-types with gold skin and leather hoods over their heads. The hoods cover bizarre bulbous eyes, but fortunately the only barbarian with dialogue, the leader named Kuza, has a normal face and is simply a bald, gold bloke. “As you see,” he tells Boyd, “we are a race of humanoids but we are different from you.”

The humans escape and fight off a bunch of the original, gold-wigged aliens who are apparently from the planet Anthor. They have discovered the secret of eternal life but can only survive by transplanting organs from a lesser race, the inhabitants of Azar. It’s very clear that, although this film was made to cash in on Star Wars fever, the biggest influence in terms of both story and design is the TV series UFO, which was very popular in Italy.

With Kuza’s help, the Trissi heads to Anthor where they swiftly find ProfessorCarr operating a giant computer, but he summons Anthor guards who capture our heroes and parade them before the Empress, who turns out to be, unsurprisingly, HisassistantLois. There then follows lots of running down corridors and double-crossing until eventually everyone is back on board the Trissi, including ProfessorCarrandhisassistantLois, and heading for Earth. The Prof is under sedation, wakes up, kills the ship’s doctor and tries to escape, but is shot by an unseen assailant. It’s Lois, who is a bad’un after all and has somehow smuggled a whole squad of Anthorian goons on board.

Control of the ship is wrested back to Boyd and his crew but Lois escapes out the airlock to one of the pursuing fleet of Anthorian ships, commanded by a minor character called (I am not making this up) General Gonad. The last quarter of an hour or so is one of cinema’s dullest spaceship battles which culminates in Boyd having to make a choice between Lois and Julia. (Oh, the reactor - remember that? - is deactivated successfully despite the death of Prof. Carr because Kuva picked up a datachip while on Anthor which turns out to be the Prof’s notes...)

Christ, this is cut-price movie-making. And yet, the situation was such in the late 1970s, with Star Wars fever riding high and the video market exploding, that any old shit with a spaceship in it could turn a profit. Alfonso Brescia (Iron Warrior, Amazons Against Supermen) must have been making money at this sort of thing - he made five of them! Starting with Anno Zero, Guerra nello Spazio aka War in Space in 1977, then this fella (La Guerra dei Robot - oh yes, I almost forgot, the Anthorians turn out to be robots!) and Battaglie negli Spazi Stellari aka Battle of the Stars aka War of the Planets in 1978, and finishing with La Bestia nello Spazio and Sette Uomini d’Oro nello Spazio aka Captive Planet in 1979. The films weren’t sequels but some of the same cast and crew were used, along with sets, costumes, props and not-very-special effects. I have seen Battle of the Stars and, though it is rubbish, it is nowhere near as bad as Reactor. Of course the best known Italian SF film from this period is Luigi Cozzi’s Starcrash; let me assure you that, if you thought that was a bit pants, it is The Magnificent Ambersons compared to Brescia’s work.

Words cannot describe how cheaply and quickly this has been thrown together, bearing in mind that this is a professionally made motion picture, not some amateur production. Some stuff is sheer costcutting: all the characters, whether human or Anthorian, use exactly the same small, plastic, toy ray-guns; and spacewalk sequences always show the character on the far right of the screen, their feet just off screen - in other words, they eschewed wires in favour of simply turning the camera on its side. Other defects fall more under the heading of sheer carelessness: much of the film is out of focus, and during the final fight for control of the Trissi, someone forgot to add any sound effects!

Reactor is available on a Region 1 double-bill with War of the Planets under its US title, War of the Robots, a package which rather cheekily pinches an iconic illustration of Caroline Munro in her skimpy Starcrash costume. Rest assured that Hisassistantlois doesn't wear anything quite so sexy...

My full-screen British video (probably from the 1980s) has English language titles so most of the Italian names have been cunningly converted into English. Brescia is usually credited as ‘Al Bradley’ but here is ‘Al Bradly’ on screen and on the packaging. The cast includes ‘special appearances by’ Jacques Herlein (whose amazing CV includes The Whip and the Body, Goliath and the Sins of Babylon, Tower of Screaming Virgins, Shaft in Africa, Frankenstein’s Aunt, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Ironmaster and The Winds of War!) and ‘Mickey Pilgrim’ (presumably this is Ines Pellegrini from Salo or 120 Days of Sodom). The ‘special effects’ are by ‘Allan Forsyth’ who is actually Aldo Frollini. His earliest credit (that I can find) is a 1968 spaghetti western, he has worked with everyone from Argento to Fellini, and he now runs his own effects company in Rome, providing live video effects for plays and operas as well as some movie work.

Avoid like the plague.

MJS rating: D-