School of Fear / Il gioko (1989)

‘80s Italian horror TV movies aren’t always the most memorable and have a tendency to be a little underwhelming in comparison to the classic gialli and Eurohorror films from the ‘60s and ‘70s golden era. By the late ‘80s, we were at, or were even beyond, the tail end of the horror boom, with many Italian directors making movies more for television. Lamberto Bava directed a lot of TV movies throughout his career. His ‘80s horror TV movies paid a lot of homage to the classic gialli and horror films that sculpted the genre like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), Inferno (1980), House by the Cemetery (1981), his father’s Black Sunday (1960), and even his own Demons (1985). A lot of times his TV films could be a little mediocre and almost feel like near-pointless rehashes, like Demons 3: The Ogre (1988), but Lamberto Bava also had a tendency to catch you by surprise with TV movies like Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil (1989), the hilarious and ‘80s satirical Dinner with a Vampire (1989), and the (previously) hard-to-find School of Fear.

Aside from being an interesting take on the evil kid trope, School of Fear / Il gioko does present a lot to chew on, and like Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil and Macabre (1980) is a little more of what I prefer from director Lamberto Bava. Don’t get me wrong, Demons and A Blade in the Dark (1983) are awesome too, but I honestly lamented for a time that we never really got something as twisted, different, and well-made as Macabre. It’s still no Macabre, but School of Fear feels a little more in the right direction towards something twisted and different.

Shock / Beyond the Door II (1977)

Mario Bava’s final full-length film as director Shock (AKA Beyond the Door II) is like The Amityville Horror (1979), Repulsion (1965), and The Shining (1980) combined into a progressive-rock tinged haunted-house Italian horror/mystery thriller that does manage to be scary. Bava again employs the vengeful ghost story, as in his child-themed Kill Baby Kill (1966), but keeps it in the family, creating a ghost story about marital vengeance, which was based on a true story that Bava weaved in to an already existing script, about a living house, he had co-written with Dardano Sacchetti several years prior. The end product is a slow-paced but ultimately exhilarating experience that succeeds at being one of the creepier Italian horrors. Bava’s son Lamberto Bava, who also contributed to the script, said they were influenced a little more by Stephen King and were attempting to make a modern horror film.

The film also has a possession angle that takes a few cues from The Exorcist (1973), which might have been in response to the success of The House of Exorcism (1975): producer Alfredo Leone’s revamping of Bava’s Lisa and the Devil (1973), with newly filmed possession scenes spliced in.

Dario Argento's Inferno (1980)

SUSPIRIA was an extremely successful international hit for Dario Argento, and he was faced with distributors wanting more of the same. The result is INFERNO, another surreal journey through trippy colorful sets and stylish horror scenarios, to the heart of a profound evil hidden away in a threatening architecture, like a secret for the film’s protagonist to unveil. INFERNO is a sequel to SUSPIRIA, but it was unlikely that a sequel was initially planned, so INFERNO takes on the task of relating the two films at the start by accounting the legend of the Three Mothers through a male voiceover that sounds while protagonist Rose (Irene Miracle) is reading a copy of an evil book, simply titled THE THREE MOTHERS. 

Now you don’t need to see SUSPIRIA first to enjoy INFERNO, in fact if there’s that little chance that you haven’t seen SUSPIRIA yet, I’d recommend checking out INFERNO first because there seems to be an inevitable comparison viewers make between the two that really ends up being an unfair fight for INFERNO. So, for the time being, I’m going to try to resist comparing the two films and instead focus only on INFERNO. 

INFERNO is a riddle in itself with a story based around three keys that characters must uncover in order to discover the truth behind the madness. The narration sort of disorients the viewer by shifting between three protagonists for the first half, giving it almost an episodic feel. It is unusual and at the same time very interesting that we at first spend some weird moments getting acquainted with the character of Rose sending a letter to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) studying music in Rome before the story abruptly shifts to one of Mark’s classmates, Sara (Eleonora Giorgi), who happens to pick up the letter instead. When Sara reads the letter she ends up being so disturbed and troubled by what she’s read that on her way home she makes a detour to the library to check out a copy of THE THREE MOTHERS, a book that turns out to be more threatening than the Necronomicon. It seems rather hard to believe that a grown woman would be this influenced by the contents of a letter. It’s almost as if Sara is demonstrating a childlike impressionability. 

The following scene of Sara at the Library is fabulous and consists of terrific cinematography and dusty old bookshelves that tower to dizzying heights. A sinister stare from a young lady studying ends up giving off a surreal feeling that something very evil and powerful happens to be stalking Sara.

Dario Argento's Phenomena (1984), or Connelly in Wonderland

All those times watching Labyrinth as a kid I was completely oblivious to the fact that Jennifer Connelly had previously starred in an even darker fairytale. Director Dario Argento’s “Phenomena” is like a film dressed up to resemble a childlike fairytale but is really a nightmarish journey through hell. Before seeing it, I recall being very intrigued from what I read on the Internet and from already being aware of the film's main musical theme from a rendition by metal band “Rhapsody of Fire” Link to Song (It seriously does make for great background music, while reading this review). The movie’s unique style of fantasy and horror had caught my attention so much that I was already a fan of the movie before I even saw it. I had to have it!! After ordering off for the DVD on Amazon and waiting for a month, that seemed to take forever, the movie finally showed up in the mail. What I was to see forever sealed my fandom for Dario Argento’s films.   

The movie opens abruptly in the Swiss Alps, where a Danish tourist (Dario Argento’s daughter, Fiore) misses the bus and is left stranded. During the opening credits, I was surprised to find out that the costumes were designed by Giorgio Armani (the same people that design Lady Gaga’s clothes!) and that among the soundtrack is “Iron Maiden” and “Motorhead”. Most criticize the use of metal in this movie because it deflates the suspense, but I for one enjoyed those moments where it all of a sudden feels like we’ve just wandered into a music video.