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Çirkin Dünya (1974)
Interesting Turkish movie
I've seen this movie in Italian DVD rendition and I appreciated it. I confess that I do not know anything about Turkish movie industry of the seventies but this product is of an average quality, even for occidental standards. Plot is simple not to say poor: three outlaws take possession of the house of a rich doctor: they terrorize his family and start a spiral of violence that will lead to a cruel end for everyone. Good photography, bad acting and some beautiful glimpses of the city of Istanbul during the seventies... A trivia: Italian title ('La gang dell'Arancia Meccanica') can be translated to 'The Clockwork Orange Gang': this is the title with which this movie has been distributed in Italy.
The Fine Art of Love: Mine Ha-Ha (2005)
A useless movie going nowhere
I've never read the novel on which this movie is based but I bet it's miles better than its visual rendition. The fact that I'm the first to comment here could help to understand how many people have seen it: a few, I guess, including me!. The main problem of this movie can be easily resumed by this expression: 'there's less than meets the eye'. We have a college of female orphans raised in strict discipline apparently for the sole purpose of dancing and be one day chosen by a not better defined 'prince' as the 'star of the ballet' and gain his 'particular attention'. They ignore everything about their real origins and live almost segregated from outer world. As the coming of age approaches the idyllic mood vanishes and some of the girls start wonder about their condition and found what should not be found: their headmistress is a psycho capable of horrible things, even kill, to preserve the secret that lies behind the existence of the college itself. The absurd thing is that we never know what the secret is! But there are plenty of such incongruences throughout the whole story... The direction fails, in my opinion, to follow a precise line and what we see is a lot of rudimentary sub-plots not sufficiently developed. A story about a 'sentimental education' seen from a lesbian side turns into something darker and Gothic over a badly defined environment we hardly recognize as Austria, early 20th century. Don't waste your time with this title: highly NOT recommended.
Escalation (1968)
A product of its time
This colorful movie is deeply linked to the place and time it has been shot: Italy, 1968. Every clichés that comes to your mind when you think about that period are largely displayed throughout the whole story. Maybe at the the time of its release it should be appeared as a political story, a work of art criticizing the hypocrisy of a crystallized society but today any kind of "revolutionary" meaning, even subtle, is definitely lost. In my opinion good premises are largely wasted and in result we have a movie with confused ideas and confused actors unable to focus their characters into something more definite. There are some minor nude scenes, too. An expedient to attract people I merely suggest. To me it's a 5 out of 10.
Holocaust parte seconda: i ricordi, i deliri, la vendetta (1980)
Definitely not a masterpiece, but...
Originally filmed in 1978 and reissued in 1980 to jump on the train of the little hype generated by the release of the 'Holocaust' Italian TV movie that same year, this movie seems to have been mounted quite badly. If you add uninspired characters and improbable locations the general impression you get from this title is that is not that good! But it retains a special fascination, as a real b-movie should, that true cine-freak can't ignore. It has been said this is the last of the porno-Nazi movies (Marco Giusti), even if there is less violence and less sex than the standard. With better means and a 'real' script this could have turned into something remarkable: the idea of using hypnosis to teach a girl to kill his victims is not that bad at all. My vote: 6/10.
La notte dei dannati (1971)
Superb Gothic movie
The other comment here could not be serious. This title deserves all the attention a cult movie should. It has all the elements proper to the genre it represents. A witch, a castle, a malediction, an 'investigator of the occult', some morbid sexual themes, a rich and grainy photography focused on warm and thick colors like red and orange so that it resemble that of another great movie: 1962's Riccardo Freda's masterpiece "L'orribile segreto del dottor Hichcock". The plot could not be so original but this is not the main thing to appreciate in a product like this. Remember: it was filmed in 1971 on a low budget. If you're into Jess Franco or Mario Bava don't hesitate to search for this movie, it will worth the time and money. To me it's an 8/10.
La vittima designata (1971)
Great Italian thriller
User ratings sometimes (I'd dare to say 'often') don't reflect the real quality of a movie... This is the case, in my opinion. "La vittima designata" is a remake of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a train" (that has a user rating of 8.3) and, call me blasphemous if you want, it is almost better. Here we have a rich, baroque photography, great atmosphere, and wonderful acting performances: Milian and Clementi interact perfectly adding to the whole story a soft sense of ambiguity that enriches it and could have lead to paths unknown to Hitchcock's movie. Venice and the palace of the nobleman Matteo Tiepolo stand perfectly as a metaphor of moral decadence and if you have seen 'La morte a Venezia' by Luchino Visconti (filmed that same year, 1971) you know what I'm talking about. Great soundtrack, too: the Gothic lullaby "My Shadow In The Dark" with its fatalistic refrain "to die, to sleep, maybe to dream" is sung by Milian himself. I don't think this is an easy title to find these days, but if you can, start the quest. To me this is one of the best Italian movies of the seventies. 8/10
Nelle pieghe della carne (1970)
A cult movie
This is another case of a movie which seems to have been highly underestimate. This is not the crap the score rate seems to testify. When you approach such a product a minimum of historical perspective should be the norm... we cannot judge a movie filmed in 1971 with standards of today's taste. This is a thriller with a weird plot,a definite stress on turbid sexual themes, some gore scenes, some Gothic and fetish elements that can make the joy of the true Italian b-movie lover. In my opinion this movie has everything a movie should have to let you spend an hour and a half before the screen and even enjoying your time. We are a few and we're happy, please let us dream alone.
Atti impuri all'italiana (1976)
Don't waste your time with it
Settled in the Tuscan countryside this z-movie doesn't have a plot but it's a plethora of stupid situations circling around the arriving of a provoking (and almost nude throughout the whole story) female doctor in a small town. A typical product (and one of the worst) of the seventies' Italian movie industry categorized as 'erotic comedy'. I guess this title should be really hard to find these days but unless you have an historic interest for such crap the quest won't be of any benefit. Anyway if I had to find something positive in this movie, at least, then it would be the wonderful Tuscan accent in which many characters express themselves as I think this thing alone could provoke lots of laughs in the Italian audience.
The Order (2003)
A non conventional movie
Taking a look at the vote rating won't surely help to get a picture of the quality of this movie. This is indeed a very good title as it doesn't fit into any categories. I appreciate the attempt at making something different with such a subject. At first I was a little bit skeptical as it seemed to be a movie about demons and exorcists, but it's definitely not, even if there's a link to that matter. It digs deeply into the history of the church itself, depicting a little order of priests who are very close to heresy (the Carolingians) and describes a figure I was totally unaware of: the Other. It is a man in charge of taking the burden of the dying's sins, to free and cleanse their departing souls. He acts like a 'minor god' with the power to forgive even if the sinners show no signs of repentance. He acts outside of the official church and in conflict with it. Is what he does good or evil? This is the mainly intriguing question of this movie and it spread over the whole plot contributing to make the watch of this movie a challenging experience. Highly recommended.
White Noise (2005)
Interesting movie
I must to confess I was a little bit skeptical about this movie. Mainly because of the subject being not so original thinking of the Poltergeist series. Apart from all the clichés that seems to be structurally linked to almost every American movie of the last two decades, this one is a good product: quite deep in psychological analysis and quite scaring. I still can't figure out why in American movies the main characters ought to be always people from the high society but... this is not the right place to talk of a such subject, as it would be a political discussion. Anyway I enjoyed this movie. If you're interested in our relationships with the dead and have some ideas about a way to communicate with them this movie is worth a watch. The demonic presences in the 'other side' represent what I appreciate less about it as this is, no doubt, a cliché. If I were the director I would have insisted more on the ethereal and emotional side but this won't probably result in a horror movie. And scaring is definitely what this kind of movies are all about.
Anno zero - Guerra nello spazio (1977)
A very low budget, some interesting ideas
I watched this movie broadcast by an Italian local channel some days ago... and enjoyed it a lot! This is a clear example of a b-movie of the seventies with a lot of defects: bad special effects, wooden actors, a weird montage in which some scenes are cut while in the middle of a dialog or an action... But it retains a special fascination if you are capable of watching it from an historical perspective. And some ideas are definitely good, not to say anticipatory: have you ever heard the story of a planet in which machines once built by mankind revolt against their owners and enslave them by stealing their vital energy? It sounds quite like The Matrix, isn't it? Well, don't expect other resemblances. Recommended only to the true science-fiction movies fanatics!
The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (2000)
A good b-movie, as the director himself states...
I have seen the DVD version of this movie which includes interviews, trailers and other interesting stuff. It is the director himself that sates this is a low budget b-movie. It took no more than 6 weeks to get the whole thing completed. This should be enough to get rid of the major complaints about the 'not so' special fx. Anyway the movie shows nothing new about the plot and nothing new about the characters but all of the actors took their roles seriously, offering good acting performances, especially Karl Urban and Katie Wolf. Photography is gloomy and dark as it has to be, there are plenty of fast and violent action scenes and a lot of occult symbolisms that make this movie a good product (in its genre, of course).
Event Horizon (1997)
The dark side of Solaris
This is definitely a scary movie. A perfect mix of horror and sci-fi. Good acting performances, superb special effects, even if the plot could have been developed a little bit more. There are a lot of influences too, starting from Solaris: the idea of an alien entity which is capable to materialize inner fears of men and their past is surely not new. But there's no poetry inside the spaceship 'Event Horizon', just violence, madness and death. If you're into horror and sci-fi this title is fully recommended.
The Kiss (1988)
A poor screenplay for a good atmosphere...
I guess the atmosphere is the best thing to date in such a movie. That's because the acting is terrible and the screenplay is based solely upon a climax of anguish and terror. There's an ancient curse but we don't know anything about it but the fact that we have to fear it, and escape from it! That's what 90% of horror movies are about: action, thrill and never an explanation. If you have nothing to say, say nothing. Anyway, there are worst movies than this one and for the horror fans this should be a nice title to rent.
No il caso è felicemente risolto (1973)
An interesting movie
A classic 'italian story', in which an innocent and ignorant worker (witness to a crime) pays in the place of the real guilty, a high society professor. Besides the not so original topic the movie offers good acting performances and depicts perfectly the life of a low-class worker living in the suburbs of an italian city in the mid-70's.