Shock (1977)
Shock is a film from the other master of Italian horror (along with Dario Argento), Mario Bava. It was Bava's final film before his death, but it is the first of his movies that I have seen. I enjoyed it enough that I will definitely check out other entries in his catalog.
Shock is the story of a woman who, along with her son and second husband, move back into the house in which she lived with her first husband, and where he killed himself. From the moment they move in, its apparent that his spirit is still inhabiting the place, and is intent on terrorizing his former wife. There are a couple of nice twists and turns along the way, and the actor playing the son has some creepy scenes when he is possessed by his father's spirit. Its not a great movie by any means (and I am expecting that there are few great films among Bava's previous films based on his reputation as one of the all-time greats), but it was an effective little thriller.
(This was the only English trailer I could find for this film, and it is under it's alternate title Beyond the Door II, which was an attempt to cash in by making it seem like Shock was a sequel to a totally unrelated movie...)
Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
As I said in my review of The Toolbox Murders , I said that horror films can come in many forms (gory, campy, etc.). This one falls decidedly into the category of WEIRD. Now, knowing ahead of time that this movie is also known as Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (he is the producer), I expected a certain amount of weirdness. This film managed to surpass any of my expectations in that department.
Flesh... is a retelling of the Frankenstein story that revolves it completely around sex. Not in a way that is meant to titillate, lie a soft-core Skinimax version, but in that sex, in one way or another, is the driving force behind everything that happens. The Baron is married to his sister, but it is a sexless marriage that was done in order to secure their inheritance (I think - the film is a little unclear on the reason). The wife satisfies her urges by sleeping with whatever servant or peasant she can get into her bedroom. The Baron, on the other hand, suppresses his urges and instead focuses on hos work - creating a set of male and female creatures from the pieces of corpses that will obey his commands, and eventually procreate to give him an entire race of subjects to command.
All of that sounds weird enough, but doesn't really do this film justice in expressing HOW weird it is - for example, the Baron loses control of his urges in one scene and takes them out on his female creature by humping her in an open incision by her gall bladder. Later, when the baron's assistant decided he deserves a reward for his loyalty, and wants to have sex with the female creature, he thinks that the way to do it is to follow the Baron's earlier example so he eviscerates her in order to perform the act (but that results in her death). That's the kind of weirdness I am talking about.
If you can get over all that, its not really a bad film (although the random attempts to put 3D effects into the movie, since that is how it was released to the theaters, tend to be annoying). Flesh tries to emulate the horror films of the 50s and 60s and does a decent job of it. Just be prepared for exactly what type of film this is before you start watching.
Deep Red (1975)
After my disappointment with Dario Argento's Opera , I wanted to go a little farther back in his catalog to find a film I would enjoy a little more (I wanted a viewing experience closer to Suspira than Opera). Deep Red was a much better film than Opera, but it had its flaws as well.
Deep Red is the story of a murder that is witnessed by an English pianist in Italy, and the resulting publicity makes him, and everyone around him, a target for the killer. Argento does a really good job creating an atmosphere of terror through the use of the pounding musical score and the sets - every character seems to live in a sprawling apartment that has many narrow corridors and isolated rooms where the killer could be around any corner. Deep Red also contains one of the creepiest scenes I have come across in a horror film: one of the victims realizes he is not alone in his house, and, just as he expects the killer to enter the room, a mechanical doll (with the type of extremely disturbing face that all dolls used to have) comes flying into the room instead in an effort to distract. It was pretty chilling.
There were 2 major areas that kept this from being a great film. First, it was about 25 minutes too long. The plot starts to wander when the main character is trying to determine the identity of the killer. It could have been tightened up a little. Also, for some reason, the characters would switch back and forth between English and Italian, sometimes in the same conversation. It was a little jarring. I would have preferred that they kept it all in Italian with sub-titles.
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