Dark Bar

Anna, a young saxophone player, searches for the killers of her sister Elizabeth who have been involved with "the gangs from the North" (some of the least scary loooking gangsters you'll ever see). All traces leads to a club called Dark Bar.

Considering Stelio Fiorenza history as assistant director on the infamous Play Motel, you'd be forgiven for expecting Dark Bar to be a similarly sleazy affair. In reality it's a far more subdued film. I'd heard some good things about this, but ultimately found it a lackluster thriller that is lacking in both suspense and style. I'm far more fond of the poster than the actual film. Poster art by Sciotti

Pathos - segreta inquietudine (Obsession: A Taste for Fear)

Piccio Raffanini's erotic thriller is something as odd as a futuristic giallo. Obviously the budget restraints stops it from going all Blade Runner on us, but it does feature a few "futuristic" cars and ray guns. It basically looks like an 80's rock video, complete with dancing dwarves, Kid Creole and more nudity more than you can shake a stick at.

It's not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, but I have to say that it's quite entertaining and I wouldn't mind a dvd at some point.

The poster, with artwork by Sciotti, took me quite some time to find but here it is, in all it's 80's glory.

Deliria (Stagefright)

I've never really considered Michele Soavi's debut a gialli, but since it's featured in Luther Smith's Blood and Black Lace I've decided to include here. Ostensibly a slasher since there's no mystery or any doubt as to who the killer is and basically the whole cast is just waiting to be picked off one by one. Of course, this doesn't stop Deliria from being one of the more entertaining genre entries from the 80's. Poster art by Sciotti

Un gatto nel cervello (Nightmare Concert, A Cat in the Brain)

A guess hell finally froze over. It feels like we've been waiting for about a decade for the notoriously slow-moving Grindhouse to release the definitive version of Un Gatto nel cervello, but if nothing happens unexpected happens along the way Fulci's 1990 thriller should hit stores at the end of March. Considering Grindhouse seem to have picked up the pace lately, we might even get to see their release of Lenzi's The Though Ones before the end of the decade? Poster art by E. Sciotti

Phenomena

I watched Phenomena twice last month. I managed to catch it on the big screen (I was really excited about this, but slightly let down when it turned out it was a DVD, rather than film that was projected) and also picked the R2 Medusa DVD up. This edition contains the Integral version of the film (with English subs). Never watched the film in Italian before and it was a slightly strange experience to see the film without hearing Jennifer Connelly's and Donald Pleasance's voices. Unfortunately the misplaced heavy metal was still there though.
Great poster art by E. Sciotti

Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (Scorpion with Two Tails)

The two alternate posters for Sergio Martino's 1982 gialli Assassinio al cimitero etrusco.
Both by E. Sciotti. The top one is my favourite of the two. On the bottom one it looks like Sciotti decided to recycle some of his ideas from The House by the Cemetery poster he did the year before.

Moriai a mezzanotte (You'll Die at Midnight)

A general problem I have with gialli from the 80’s is that the actors generally come off as really poor substitutes for Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov and others from the golden age of gialli. Lamberto Bava's Moriai a mezzanotte is no different. Neither the performances nor the characters are interesting enough to generate any real concern for them. There are some quite good set pieces (the murder in the theatre for example) but compared to Bava's own vicious A Blade in the Dark the violence on display seems quite restrained. Poster by E. Sciotti