City of The Living Dead Aka The Gates of Hell (1980)

In rural Dunwich Father Thomas has made a decision, walking slowly through his graveyard he stops to ponder his thoughts. Then without further thought he throws a rope over the branch of a tree and hangs himself. No sooner has he hung himself than the ground begins to move near his feet.

In New York a séance is going terribly wrong, and for one of the guests it’s a very final gathering. At the crucial point of the séance Mary dies. Reporter Peter Ball is soon on the case and following up on his enquiries he heads to the burial site of Mary, where he rather surprisingly finds her very much alive and lying in a shallow grave.

The death of Father Thomas has opened the gates of Hell, now its down to Mary and Peter to close them.

I first saw City Of The Living Dead at the start of the 1990’s, a decade after it had been banned in the UK. The film, a movie made by Lucio Fulci was one of five of the director’s movies to be banned in the UK in that time period. In the 1990’s after a period of unavailability in the UK suddenly this and three other Fulci movies became available albeit in an edited format. Of all the movies this was the least edited, and at the time to be fair I believed it to be the weakest of the four available movies. The first of Fulci’s movies I had seen was The House By The Cemetery, the next was Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2), the third The Beyond; these movies all had something about them, a scene that was so shocking it forced you to pay attention. By the time I had got round to watching City Of The Living Dead all those shocks had sunk in, and there was nothing new here except that is for a rather unpleasant vomiting scene. Having glanced on a number of sites on the Internet I have noted that a lot of viewers often saw this movie later on, the more talked about features being more a priority. Why am I telling you this? The reason I feel is an important one, this while still being a powerful movie is one of the films of the pivotal point of Fulci’s career that seems to get the worst press or reviews, I cannot help but think order of play is an important factor. Watching the film for about the sixth time, and with a fresh vision (and a slightly vague memory), I can’t help but think in reflection that this is one of the better movies of that time period.

I do need to backtrack slightly and say that while I believe this to be one of the better movies of that period, I do not understand some aspects of the movie. The acting has certainly moved down a notch, some of the actions seem a little unexplained, and the movies ending that can be interpreted a number of ways I guess, has had people questioning it for years, and despite the claims of some, I do not believe we will ever truly know the answer.

Moving on to the good stuff, one of the key reasons I like City Of The Living Dead is due to the zombies themselves, you get a zombie film and it’s a typical bloodbath some zombies move fast others slow, but generally there are lots of them. Here you have a collection of lone zombies all attacking victims on a solo basis, you only see a congregation of zombies in the final minutes. The zombies here have no reason to be either fast or slow moving, as it seems they literally teleport from destination to destination, you may think that’s silly, but how much more silly is it than the prospect of brain eating zombies in the first place? Fulci’s zombies have generally been on some sort of journey, we have had decayed zombies, the recently dead zombies, here the zombies are a lot of the time looking a little burned, with the odd one that is not too different to how they looked before death, but this condition varies from zombie to zombie.

The story itself is a little shaky granted, however it manages to link together a variety of locations and thanks to a great music score, the suspense builds from the moment the earth starts moving beneath Father Thomas’s feet. The characters are narrowed down fairly quickly and you realise you have your final four, who are dispatched in an unexpected order which keeps that aspect of the story nice and fresh. The inclusion of Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) is pretty much there just to add to the body count, and certainly gets the drill rather nicely.

On a gore factor, well this is pretty good; lots of decomposing bodies scattered around, a new Fulci favourite occurs in brain scrunching, as nearly all of the characters that die and up with a zombie grabbing a characters head from the rear and squeezing so tight that a clump of skull and brain come away in their hand, this is a quite heavily used means of death in the movie.

The performances are variable Catriona MacColl performs well as ever, a good solid leading lady, the late Christopher George seems a little out of his depth at times. Carlo De Mejo almost steps into the leading male role as George struggles to keep the light on his performance. Janet Agren and future director Michele Soavi both have reasonable supporting roles.

City Of The Living Dead has some issues, it also has some really big plus points too, it’s a weaker entry in the Fulci series only if you watch them out of date order, if you’re a first time viewer however watch Fulci’s Zombie series in the correct order (Zombie Flesh Eaters, City Of The Living Dead, The Beyond, The House By The Cemetery) and you’ll find this is part of the journey that leads to the pinnacle of Fulci’s career The Beyond.

There are dozens of releases around the world of the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray, the recent release from Arrow as part of their cult movie collection is one of the best. As well as a crisp and clean print the disc is absolutely loaded to the hilt with special features. Catriona MacColl, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Carlo De Majo, Antonella Fulci, Dardano Sacchetti all feature in exclusive interviews, there are a couple of commentary tracks one of which features MacColl (always great value), as well as trailers. The case has some great artwork, and there is a highly informative booklet too.

Love Goddess Of The Cannibals

They say that sex sells, and this is the line that Shameless Screen Entertainment have taken for its second batch of releases. It’s been the best part of a year since Shameless have bought us some unadulterated Italian cinema, and now they are back. Last time round they bought us some classic thrillers or Giallo for those in the know, this time round they are focusing all about the sex, with some spicy genre bending titles. The first releases are Satan’s Baby Doll and Love Goddess Of The Cannibals, two movies that are available for the first time in the UK, and in versions that have longer prints than other countries.

Love Goddess Of The Cannibals is a 1978 offering from notorious director Joe D’Amato whose movies include the highly controversial Porno Holocaust and Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead. D’Amato’s output mainly focused on the sex and death category a monopoly that he himself dominated, the director made over 190 movies that centered on either or both categories. Both of the aforementioned titles were more over the top on what I prefer to refer as “knobs and knockers” features, being more like pornographic movies than anything else. And while being amusing in different ways, were both lacking a great deal in anything with real structure, seeing as Love Goddess Of The Cannibals comes from this era I settled down with some hesitation to watch the movie.

The movie starts in typical D’Amato fashion straight into the sex, a seduction at the hands of the beautiful Papaya (Melissa Chementi) that leads to a mouthful not easily forgotten, either for the viewer or the unlucky man in question. What follows from this is something a little edgy, and for the first time I got a little excited about a D’Amato movie, although obviously not in a way the director intended.

The story circles around an Atomic plant that has caused native inhabitants of a tropical paradise to become evicted from their homes. Papaya is a tool used by the locals for seducing the scientists and developers rendering them too weak to fight off whatever atrocity awaits them. For reporter Sara (Sirpa Lane) and plant employee Vincent (Maurice Poli) an encounter with Papaya leads them down a dark path of sacred ceremonies, voodoo, and death.

From a subject matter perspective Love Goddess Of The Cannibals (AKA Caribbean Papaya, Papaya Love Goddess Of The Cannibals) has a little more on the bone than the usual D’Amato feature, there is some clear story telling there, but its bogged down by boring soft porn sex at such an alarming rate it almost eclipses the story aspect. And as a story it’s a pretty good one, one that any torture porn director (the likes perhaps of Eli Roth) might embrace with open arms. When the story gets dark, it gets really dark and the movie is certainly full of bloody punches. Sadly at some points however the bloody punches are met by hollow after effects, when a key characters life is ended around an hour in after the “oh my God” aspect their very existence is completely eradicated from the movie, like a nasty editing accident. I’m not a D’Amato fan (or of you prefer Aristide Massaccesi) but this is certainly far better than his usual output.

Sadly the characters are all fairly one dimensional, the only character with any clarity played by the late Sirpa Lane (who rather interestingly died of Aids at the end of the 90’s) spends much of the movie sleeping with animal, vegetable or mineral for no apparent reason thus unbalancing any actual performance.

One thing that is of interest is the title of the movie, it’s a little on the deceptive side, anyone looking for a cannibal feast would be sadly upset by a movie that contains one heart eating scene, but otherwise features no cannibal activity at all. A more appropriate title might be Voodoo Love Goddess, but I guess Cannibals out sell Voodoo activity.

If you’re a fan of Italian cinema this is certainly one of those movies you will need to see in order to mentally complete a collection of classics, but it’s a disjointed, and slightly underwhelming entry. I’m certainly glad I saw it, and should I ever take up the directors chair I’d certainly have gained some story inspiration, but based on the fact I don’t and won’t I’d never watch the film again.

The DVD comes with a scattering of Trailers from the original 20 Shameless releases, a trailer for Satan’s Baby Doll, as well as some trailers for Love Goddess, and some alternate opening sequences.

Love Goddess Of The Cannibals is available for around £10.

Suspiria - Blu-ray

There was a time when the ultimate baptism of fire for any future partner would revolve around how they reacted when I showed them Suspiria. If they could stomach Suspiria without the exclamation “you’re really f**ked up!” that the relationship had any chance of surviving. For the uneducated Suspiria is a harsh vivid depiction for horror, for the more educated it was probably one of the tamer movies I had in my collection.

Dario Argento’s 1977 horror movie has always been one of the greatest assaults on the senses of any horror movie. With its lavish sets, vivid ear trembling Goblin soundtrack, and gross out prolonged gore; Suspiria is a sceptical on any level. To look at it is a thing of beauty, even if the story itself suffers some flaws. The 21^st Century has bought something new to visual entertainment, something that Argento’s spectacular movie was made for, the wonder that is high definition viewing.

The movie itself surrounds a young American woman who travels to an acclaimed school of dance in Europe. Susie Banyon (Jessica Harper) is immediately offended by the German manners she encounters, the taxi driver is rude and insensitive and her expected warm greeting at the school is just a locked door. But Susie witnesses something, a strange series of events, these events lead to the death of one of her potential classmates in a highly unusual manner. Susie’s stay is drenched in further unsociable behaviour, and more equally disturbing deaths. In a strange country, and the talk of witchcraft banded about like it’s perfectly acceptable, Susie’s stay slowly gets worse.

In 1977 and for considerable years after, few movies had quite the same effect as Suspiria. The movie clearly put Italian cinema on the map in respect of horror, and gave the very stagnant horror styling’s of American and British horror a much needed wake up call. This was a movie that ticked all the right boxes and gave horror movies across the world something they craved, a really good scare. Its amazing to think but it took over two decades for American cinema to catch up, now the sort of terror you receive in Suspiria is commonplace in cinema, but well ahead of its time.

Suspiria is quite unpleasant in its character depictions, everyone in the movie including the character of Susie is fairly unlikeable, all very blunt and to the point, with appalling attitudes and beliefs. The main negative result of this is that when characters die you are not particularly bothered. Its not all bad it’s the unpleasantness that also gives the movie part of its charm.

For me personally the most impressive aspects of the movie are its style and soundtrack. Argento goes out of his way to deliver some of the most impressive looking architecture you could ever wish to see on film, the colours are so vivid, the structures so over the top and overstated. The décor for the movie is incredibly “loud”, from the bright red exteriors, to the lavish blue velour interiors; you really would be incredibly hard to find something that looks anything like this.

Onto the movies score, performed and composed by Italian Prog. Rock band Goblin. The wonder of their score is that you do not need to see the movie, only hear the music to get a glimpse of exactly how terrifying the movie is. Suspiria is a movie that’s main mechanism is its score, from heavy pounding electric guitars to haunting vocal whispers. Never has a movie been so well served by its soundtrack, take the soundtrack away and you have less than half a movie.

From a special effects perspective Argento delivers something quite spectacular, victims are slowly bleed on razor sharp wire, throats are ripped out, and hearts stabbed in ripped open chest cavities. While the blood effects are over the top, they are representative of the movies other vivid colours. Like the depiction of horror Argento was decades ahead of more popular horror cinema, to the extent that it has taken all this time for English speaking movies to catch up.

I wont lie, the acting needs a little to be desired, and its not even the fault of dubbing. It could however be on the part of Argento’s direction however, trying to take the viewer on a more ghostly experience by making the performances a little less animated than they should. You don’t quite get the impression that a couple of the characters are fighting for their lives, and this is in some ways an inexcusable flaw.

Praise put aside Suspiria does have a bit of a problem, and that is after an initial viewing it never quite lives up to the excitement of the first viewing (unlike a lot of other Argento movies), personally I have found Suspiria quite difficult to watch the whole way through for a few years now. It still impresses with its gore, overwhelms you with its soundtrack but needed something new to take it forward. That “new” is the wonder of Blu-ray, the experience is like a fresh one, the definition of colour has never looked so amazing, the clarity of vision a shining example of why high definition came about, I would go as far as to say that Suspiria on high definition makes a viewing experience that will take a long time for anything to catch up with it or equalled. Imagine taking something that already looked a step ahead of other high definition movies, then ramped the visual feast up a level. Few movies matched up to Suspira on DVD, now I find it hard to believe anything will match up to the movie in its Blu-ray format. Photographs cannot capture what has happened here, neither can text, but believe me when I say you’ll never see anything like this, and even if you are not a fan of the horror genre, you’ll find some redeeming features here.

Special Features:

Fear At 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess Of Suspiria:- This talking head feature has some quality talking heads, but is head butted full force by the banal ramblings of Xavier Mendik a cult movie specialist. Mendik is the variety of soul who will chuck as many big words as he possibly can into a sentence, whether it’s a because of a severe dictionary beating, or whether its to sound impressive it just spoils what would otherwise be a quality release. Talking like he lives in the world of the tongue twister, (Peter Piper springs to mind) Mendik baffles then mispronounces as many works as he can, leaving a thick dirty taste in my mouth. The documentary is further hindered by the bizarre ratio it’s presented with. After a beautiful crisp clear widescreen movie, you then get this bizarre, poor quality print documentary that sits centre screen surrounded by borders. The legend that is Kim Newman, Patricia McCormack, Norman J. Warren, Claudio Simonetti and last but no means least Dario Argento adds the quality element to this otherwise odd documentary.

A very real audio commentary finds Kim Newman and Alan Jones discussing the movie in a very unscripted manner, some commentaries are put together almost scripted. Here you believe your listening to two great friends discussing a movie that in a number of ways has changed their lives.

Finally Suspiria Perspectives is a series of conversations with the characters outlined in the main documentary, its kind of like watching the edited bits not quite suitable for the documentary, but on the whole is just more elaborate discussion of the wonders of Suspiria.

Suspiria is available only in the UK at present on the Blu-ray format.

House By The Cemetery (Arrow DVD)

There are few movies that have been affected quite as badly as a result of the UK’s video nasty furore than The House By The Cemetery. In 1984 when certification kicked in and movies started to become banned when our government was trying to yurn us into a nanny state House By The Cemetery was one of the first to go. Ironically in 1993 after nearly ten years in the wilderness it was one of the first of the former video nasties to get a release, then by the now defunct S. Gold & Sons sub label Vipco (S. Gold & Sons are also now defunct but were former pioneers in the home entertainment industry). While it secured its release there was a considerable amount of time edited from the movie. As DVD took off and Vipco planned a DVD release of the movie they then presented it before the BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) again where it was agreed that they could release a slightly lengthened version. But it has taken till 2009, twenty five years since the movie was banned, for the movie to at last be seen in an uncut form in the United Kingdom.

House By The Cemetery is a movie from the infamously titled Godfather Of Gore Lucio Fulci, made during his heyday of 1979-1981 where his “Zombie” horror movies changed the way western culture looked at Zombies. I always feel referring to House By The Cemetery as a zombie movie does it an injustice because the movies killer is not strictly dead, a pretty rudimentary part of being a zombie in my book. None the less this is a movie that has great affection in my eyes, because although I had briefly skated round the genre of the Italian horror/thriller movie, it was after seeing this film that I became a fan of Italian horror forever.

Beginning in New York a young family are on the verge of making a move to Boston where Norman (Paolo Malco) is planning to continue the work of a colleague who seemingly turned insane and killed himself and his family. Wife Lucy (Katherine (or Catriona) MacColl) and son Bob (Giovanni Frezza) in toe, they arrive at Oak Mansion a remote house by a now disused graveyard. While Norman gets straight to work its Lucy’s responsibility to turn this old wreck of a house into a home. While Norman turns up very little Lucy is thrown straight into making discoveries, whilst cleaning the living area she discovers a tombstone with the name Jacob Tess Freudstein on it, a name that’s an essential part of Norman’s investigations. With creepy vocal noises half roaring half child crying, a disturbing looking babysitter, the impression that Norman knows a lot more than he’s letting on, and a bizarre but striking young girl by the name of May; The House By The Cemetery has all the essential factors to make a completely chilling horror movie.

I won’t tell you any lies the acting is not the best, director Fulci believing that the storytelling is more essential than the actors roles, this is in no means helped by the dubbing of all the characters into English; especially when either the dubbing artist or the Italian to English translator cannot identify the difference between a doctor or a baker “You really should be taking those tablets your baker prescribed” states Malco at a moment of high tension. But put aside these two facts and you have potentially the framework of one of the most cleverly crafted horror movies of the 1980’s. Fulci spends a great amount of the movies 85-85 minute running time building the tension, leaking out little snippets of information, or showing you just enough to keep you enthralled. Rather beautifully the movies killer although fairly obvious from the movies offset is not shown to the audience until the final moments of the film, and pretty is not a word you would use to describe it.

The Hostel movies got a lot of acclaim for their rather bloody and in your face gruesomeness; well House By The Cemetery does a similar job, the big difference being that Fulci’s classic was twenty five years earlier in back 1981. As you enter the killer’s lair properly for the first time, you’re treated to the remains of a variety of cannibalised victims, not cannibalised for food however, but for their organs and other essentials that a 200 year old killer might require. YUK!

Many of Lucio Fulci’s movies even through his better times are slightly disjointed leaving you with a “what just went on there?” style thought, City Of The Living Dead (another Fulci movie from the same era) being a classic example, but House By The Cemetery avoids these trappings, your fully aware of what’s just taken place but the burning question as the credits begin to roll is what happens next? If you allow your mind to think about it, there is a good sequel there because all the doors are left open, leaving the viewer with a deep feeling of helplessness. It was exactly this sort of after thought that drew me towards the Italian horror genre.

If you’re not a particularly strong stomached horror movie viewer this is one you might want to slowly wean yourself into. There are some pretty jumpy moments mixed in with the grotesque gore. And while the movies first death might leave you chuckling the combination of gore and tension as it begins to build up can be too much for some to bear.

As well as being presented uncut, this is by far the cleanest print I have seen of the movie. There are some beautiful grainy scenes that give the movie a real texture. Something else that stood out to me from the movies offset was that title font is different from all the other DVD releases that have been seen in the UK, and now bare a pinkish tinge instead of the usual white titles. This combined with the addition of a deleted scene leads me to believe that these titles are the originally intended ones, while this is fairly small fry to the average viewer this is news I’m sure would appeal to the movies hardcore fans. Other special features include a 17 minute documentary that discusses both the movie and the impact Fulci had to the horror movie genre and more interestingly how oblivious he was to the fact that he had fans across the world, and not just in his native Italian homeland. Other features include trailers, tv spots, and a image gallery. The case inlay offers a double sided cover so you can vary your choices slightly.

The House By The Cemetery is due for release on June the 29^th of Arrows Masters Of Giallo label.

Watch Me When I Kill

Few people really understand the influence of Italian cult cinema upon the world of the popular movie, many do not even realise there was a time that Italy knocked out hundreds of movies a year; I recently enlightened a mind when I explained the term Spaghetti Western, leaving the person in question quite surprised as to the roots of this often used phrase. While the movies of Italy focused on what was popular inAmerican cinema and copied it, seldom do you hear the reverse. America however frequently borrows heavily from Italy, Quentin Tarentino reaches into Italian cinema history to steal aspects for his movies, I think I can draw some reference for everyone of his movies that stems from Italy. So inspired is the director that this year we will see a remake of the Italian classic Inglorious Bastards, a movie he frequently raves about. Also this year we will see another Italian classic get the re-make treatment in Suspiria, originally directed by Dario Argento. The Italians realise talent when they see it, and the need to copy ideas that work; this brings me to the latest Shameless release Watch Me When I Kill (Aka il Gatto dagli oochi di giada, The Cats Victims, The Cat With Jade Eyes), this movies writer/director Antonio Bido was clearly so inspired by the Dario Argento movie Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) that the movie mimics it.

Watch Me When I Kill is a rare delight; it’s one of those seldom seen movies that is often discussed by fans of the Italian thriller genre. The trouble being that those lesser seen or less popular movies suffer terribly without careful preservation. Apparently the movie rather surprisingly was one of the highest grossing Italian movies of the 70’s, but unlike movies like the aforementioned Deep Red was not kept alive by the fans. Shameless Films struggled for months to hunt down the best source material, and get specialists in the field to give the movie some new life. I think this needs some praise as it’s a common thought that companies that buy movies to sell on their independent labels are assumed to be literally chucking movies onto discs willy nilly with little thought about quality. It was all the way back last summer that my contact at Shameless told me they were trying to get some better footage... If you want to be taken seriously in the world of DVD production then look to these guys on how to do a job properly, imagine spending half a year preserving a movie before you even know how it will be received?

Onto the movie, about time I hear you cry. What you have here is an effective little thriller, clearly shot on the hoof but with a reasonable amount of time piecing the story together. With Watch Me When I Kill the movie surrounds a shared secret, something that happened in the past that connects a group of seamlessly un-associated characters. The whole series of events begins with the murder of an old pharmacist one day while working in his store. Nightclub performer Mara (Paola Tedesco) stumbles across the scene of the crime, and by association puts herself in the line of danger. When old flame Lukas (the late Corrado Pani) comes into the picture, he starts to connect all the pieces of the puzzle.

Watch Me When I kill is like a typical blueprint whodunit style thriller (this specific type of Italian thriller has become known as Giallo), lots of random murders, and a whole bucket load of red herrings along the way to keep you guessing the movies killer until the very end.

The movie has dated far more than any Italian thriller I can think of, and I’m not referring to the print quality. It’s clear to anyone with the slightest knowledge of Italian thrillers that director Bido is trying to replicate the power of Argento. What Argento is clever to do though is hide tell tale signs that give indication to the movies age, so that with the exclusion iof fashion his movies could have been made anytime. Bido on the other hand throws ever bit of 1977 culture, and technology he can into the movie, meaning that by 1980 the movie already would have looked quite dated. This is not a digging criticism in fact it gives the movie a little charm, anyone researching late 70’s lifestyles would have a field day here; it’s really quite delightful to watch. When not focusing on the culture aspects Bido rushes around Padua, Tivoli, and Rome like you’re a tourist on a 24 hour break, I wonder how much the landscape will have changed.

There are not any real scares, or moments of fright in the movie; however this does not stop the movie from at times being quite disturbing. Using “state of the art” 1977 technology in one rather long scene Lukas takes his neighbour Giovanni Bozzi to a recording studio to dissect a tape recording of noises played down the telephone to the neighbour. The recording is not too pleasant on its own, but when the various aspects are broken down it gets a little more eerie. A movie could have been concocted off the back of this recording alone, and had you shown any signs of flagging on this movie then this would certainly alert your senses.

The story is pieced together quite nicely, with a good flow of action, mystery and a scattering of romance. For those who love those gritty moments of death, there is quite a healthy body count to keep you amused.

This is not a movie that should have been dubbed into English, it does somehow cheapen the movie, making all the actors come off as being a bit cheesy and just plain wrong, for the time you had a collection of reasonably respected actors and public celebrities, who now seem like amateurs due to rather lax dubbing techniques. Early on in the movie Mara drops in rather casually that someone had tried to kill her, the dubbing artists emotionless words make it sound more like she forgot the sugar. This is not a flaw on the side of Shameless but of the producers of the movies that ordered the dubbed version. It’s worth adding that few Italian movies would make sense in their native tongues, as cast members were often plucked from around the globe with no understanding of Italian, using the much mentioned now Deep Red, British actor David Hemmings was dubbed into Italian, but because vast portions of the original soundtrack were scrapped he was then dubbed back into English; in recent years as more of that movie has been recovered the issues of this have become far more obvious.

Sticking with Deep Red, there is this series of scenes that literally copy the movie with new eyes; shadowed figures, a table of totally random items, and false jumps. Just in case you were starting to think it was all copied, Bido curveballs you with a connection to another Argento movie, Suspiria. Musicians Trans Europa Express burst in with a Suspiria inspired soundtrack. The group did not only rip off Goblin/Argento hits, after the initial smack in the face of obviousness you get something far more subdued, almost dreamy, even beautiful.

Watch Me When I Kill is not necessarily a movie that you watch and become an immediate fan of, it can at times be fairly hard going. I chose to watch the movie twice, and knowing the movies hidden secrets the second time round I was more alert, more involved, and as a result I enjoyed it all the more; what went from pretty average rose a few levels in my opinion.

Special Features:

On Watch Me When I kill you get something quite unusual on a Shameless release, and that’s a very frank conversation with Antonio Bido as he talks about the movie in detail, and allows you through his words to see the movie through his eyes. The director is quick to try and put a halt to any Argento comparisons saying these are coincidental, and that if he copied anyone he was following Alfred Hitchcock. Bido also explains about the impact of the movie on Italian Cinema history, the failure of the stereo soundtrack, and the reason the print quality (now pretty well restored by Shameless) has not lasted well with time. On a nice touch the director also addresses his failures and his regrets.

After their previous commentary track, experts on all things Giallo “The Wilson Brothers” have put together a far more relaxed commentary track allowing you to enjoy move the movie and the text that accompanies it, still however managing to retain their unique sense of humour.

There are two trailers for the movie, both the American and International versions.

An alternate opening credits sequence gives an interesting spin on the movie.

There is a pictue gallery and trailers for other Shameless movies including Strip Nude For Your Killer, Baba Yaga, Torso, Oasis Of Fear, The Designated Victim, and The Phantom Of Death.

The movie is available to buy in the UK from the end of February.

Strip Nude For Your Killer

It’s been a long two months, but the end of October spells the launch of the next Shameless Screen Entertainment movie: Strip Nude For Your Killer (Nude per l’assassino). Made back in 1975 this movie has been sadly elusive in the UK, while overseas it has been an incredibly popular purchase for collectors of the Italian thriller genre otherwise known as Giallo!

My first encounter with the movie occurred two years ago, when against advice I purchased the German X-Rated edition. The movie was quite literally chucked onto the DVD, its imagery sometimes so dark it was hard to see, but most importantly a soundtrack so distorted and poor that thirty odd minutes in I turned my back on the movie. The events so disturbed me that I wrote the movie off as a lost cause, and even ignored a following purchase of US Blue Underground disc. I had to buy it I’m a completist. Upon inserting the Shameless disc I was overjoyed to see the level of preservation that the team had gone to, the lengths of achieving (it’s this preservation process that sees such a large gap between the companies releases) something that looks near on perfect. Even when compared to the Blue Underground disc (who have far deeper pockets than Shameless) the preservation is amazing, the sound is near on modern day movie quality perfect. If there is any real flaw it’s in the dark scenes where the movies age is more obvious with some blue tints to what should be black.

As the movie begins we see a young woman on a doctors table, this is a typical case of the back street abortionist, but not so typical is the sudden death of the woman. The dodgy Doc is straight on the phone for help, and we see two men (one of which being the doctor) lowering the girl’s body into a bath in an attempt to make the death look like an accident. Thinking all is well the Doctor is not expecting to be brutally murdered while entering his home.

A month on and as the petty dramas of the Albatross modelling agency unfold, one of the photographers (a very good Quentin Crisp lookalike) while minding his own business, is disturbed by a visitor. While clearly knowing his visitor, things turn nasty; “You’re spilling my whisky!” he cries, but death and a rather nasty anal assault await our photographer, are the two murders connected? But this is just the beginning, and as the bodies mount up it’s up to newly united couple Magda (Edwige Fenech) and Carlo (Nino Castelnuovo) to crack the mystery.

I’m not going to plead all is good here; to be honest with you the movie does not feature the best of stories, it’s very “Scooby Doo” structured and for the most part leaning in the direction of what I would call bobbins. However, if you love the Italian horror and Giallo movies then of course this is too much of an opportunity to let slip you buy, after all you are talking about the opportunity, to see this movie freely available in uncut form in the UK for the very first time.

The story bounces about a bit, one minute being completely fluid, the next not so much; there is not much development here in its’ storyline or the characters, the characters are so thinly written that you do not really get to the heart of any of the characters. The movies big hero is one minute a little likeable the next minute coming off like a complete psycho, throttling Magda for no apparent rhyme or reason. Magda the movies leading lady, is sadly a little dim and annoying. Then there is the police, the biggest sham of a police force you have ever seen in a movie; when a crime occurs it seems the whole police force pile into a crime scene, nobody stays outside, and certainly none of the police can run.

Unlike a lot of Italian movies Strip Nude For Your Killer was shot entirely in Italian, this needs explaining I guess; frequently in Italian movies the cast are global, in many movies the cast spoke in their own language, or were forced to speak in English, then often dubbed into whatever language was appropriate for the movies audience. The result is that for those a little on the picky side, it’s obvious that this movie has been dubbed into English. The reason for mentioning this is that the person dubbing the character of Carlo has a few issues when saying certain words specifically corpuscles.

For the movies director Andrea Bianchi, this movie is somewhat a masterpiece his career varied from gross out movies to hardcore pornography, here he manages a partial synergy by delivering a pretty gory thriller, with enough nudity and semi-clothed stars to keep his more hardcore adult movie fans happy. It seems that the director was trying to harness a new genre, and while other movies before and after have tried, this is one of the more illicit of the Italian sex thrillers. I mentioned earlier the sort of mish-mash of storytelling and style, for those familiar with the Italian movies Bianchi’s work includes The Nights Of Terror AKA The Zombie Dead, Zombi 3; a movie that touches on the “It’s so bad it’s good” style, similar could be said about this offering.

When not trying to titillate, the movie really goes for the gross out factor, the movies killer likes to undress their victims and tries to mutilate them in some way, one has a breast sheared off, another their testicles, while another makes off lightly just losing their ears, although lightly is a bit tame as the victim still dies. While the cutting is not pictured onscreen the after effects are, and while not being particularly realistic it’s still pretty mean to look at.

Of the movies cast Edwige Fenech always makes for good viewing, the actress was incredibly popular during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s making a recent return in big screen horror offering Hostel 2. Fenech here is sporting an unusually cropped haircut, and looking almost boyish. Bianchi had little time for actors and Fenech is never given any real chance to shine, though still rather nice to look at. I skip over Nino Castelnuovo because you cannot judge his role fairly due to the pitfalls of the characters development, I cannot remember a time I so venomously disliked a movie lead, this is more a criticism of the character than the actor. Who was nice to see however was Franco Diogene as the aging virgin Maurizio, Diogene is possibly best known as the crooked lawyer Yesil in Midnight Express, unfortunately you get to see a little too much of this character.

Of the movies big plus points, the big draw is that you will not ever guess who the killer is, I was on the right lines but 100 miles from the target, and this is the resounding benefit of the movie, it’s great to have a mystery and if nothing else the film delivers that.

Special Features:-

I’m at this time uncertain if the movie will come with a reversible cover as recent releases have, there seems to be no mention of it with the material I received, but in fairness it’s a great buy with or without the cover. The movie has been remastered in 2.35:1 with a 2.0 soundtrack.

But it’s the trailers that really impress here, alongside trailers for existing releases Torso (AKA Carnal Violence), and New York Ripper come trailers for upcoming titles. The Designated Victim is the next due release, a loose remake of Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train the movie will be seen by UK audiences for the first time, and unusually for Shameless releases according to the new trailer will come with special features including an English and Italian soundtrack, fact-track, deleted scenes, and art gallery; they are calling this the Fan Edition. Oasis Of Fear looks simply swinging with a glimpse of Flash Gordon’s Ornella Mutti in the altogether, well almost. Something that really pleased me was the first concrete evidence of the movie Watch Me When I Kill about to appear on the scene. While Shameless also promise Baba Yaga: Reloaded, a special 35^th anniversary edition re-edited by the movies director after it was harshly edited upon release. Of course the trailer for Strip Nude For Your Killer is also included.

While personally it’s not my favourite of the Shameless releases, I’m thrilled that their releases has at last allowed me to see the movie, and that they have put so much hard work in the release.

Strip Nude For Your Killer is available from the end of October RRP £12.99.