The Witches' Sabbath / La visione del sabba (1988)

“Ayy, if you do get that chick, all you ‘gots’ is trouble...” – Greaser Greg 

Marco Bellocchio’s bewitching romance The Witches’ Sabbath is next-level surreal Italian witch horror, especially when it comes to the visuals. For me, it’s one of many descendants or even a culmination of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), but those well-known sacrificial witch-burning spectacles and inquisition tropes we’ve seen so many times at this point are given a makeover and an interesting alternate take. Familiar themes of reincarnation and romance are intentionally ambiguous, as we’re not really sure if the interactions with the witch are real or the fancy of a romantic dreamer. And if the witch is real, it’s anyone’s guess if she represents a fatal attraction for the mortal lover. These uncertainties still make for an enjoyably mystifying experience that really captivates with some of the best unreal and imaginative visuals that are worth the price alone. The film also has a surreal factor to it that keeps it interesting, with a real ‘80s fantasy feel to it at times. 

 

Considering the worldwide impact she must’ve made playing the unstable, complicated but highly desirable love interest as the title character in Jean-Jacques Beineix’s successful Betty Blue (1986), it’s no surprise that the producers were interested in casting Béatrice Dalle in this complex witch/romance drama that kind of feels like a supernatural successor to Betty Blue. Dalle really does feel right for the role. Actually, I think she fits this part to a tee. 

 

It’s important here to have a stunning lead that can capture the attention of any viewer and have the kind of dark and haunting beauty to make her convincing as a desirable witch, and Dalle has all of this in spades. She really sells the surreal sex scene with her co-star Daniel Ezralow with her expressions. This is a love scene I really feel each time I see it. Dalle also gives an impressive, emotional backstory monologue that lasts over two minutes, detailing the time she encountered Napolean that may or may not be delusional. Everything she is saying seems like lies, but she also comes off as sincere.

 

The film starts and ends with some impressive pyrotechnics. It had my attention at the very beginning with Beatrice Dalle in the foreground when a sudden fire explosion drops behind her, like a ball of burning witch energy that can’t touch her. The lingering shot of the witch’s melancholic silhouette here against the background fire is a powerful visual that will stay with you. 

 

Centuries in the past, during an inquisition of an imprisoned woman (Dalle) accused of being a witch, a man attending the examination, Davide (Daniel Ezralow), seems to show pity (or is it fascination?) and falls in love with the accused. Being the only one to really care about her, it’s implied that he saves her and forms an emotional bond with the witch that lasts through the centuries.

 

In the present day, Davide wakes from a dream. He’s a psychiatrist who works in an asylum with women suffering from delusions and mania, which kind of makes him the right man for an upcoming job of evaluating a prisoner who claims to be an immortal witch. He later travels with his wife, Cristina (Corinne Touzet), to an old town to evaluate this woman, Maddalena (Dalle again), imprisoned for attempted murder, who claims to be born in the year 1630. She appears to be the same persecuted witch from Davide’s dream, who he feels hopelessly drawn too.

 

When Maddalena is first introduced to Davide in the present, we are treated to an insane hallucination, a spiraling visual that had me reeling. I wouldn’t be surprised if this image of Maddalena literally spiraling in front of Davide becomes a widely used GIF someday. I’m baffled every time I see it. (What kind of off-screen spinning contraption was the actress affixed to?) It’s a truly remarkable sequence (one of many) that hypnotizes and creeps me out every time. I absolutely love it.

 

Just as she was in her past life, Maddalena is still a prisoner today, with it being alluded to that she may not deserve her imprisonment. Davide feels she may need help, not prison, and perhaps that is why he is here for her now, as he was then. Davide may hope he can "save" her and be with her again, but at what cost? 

Maddalena can be thought of as both a potential threat and a source of happiness and love for Davide (a blessing or a curse?). There’s a tenderness between the two. It feels like they belong together, but everything in the universe is making it complicated for them to find that love again. He may have loved her in a previous life, and now their paths have crossed again in unfortunate circumstances. (I love the way she just pops into scenes when he is thinking of her, like she is a ghost.)

 

What is intriguing is that like the lead I too felt the same level of concern, fascination, and emotional attachment to Maddalena. It’s a familiar depiction of what it’s like to think you are under someone’s spell. I mean, just look at the way he keeps looking at her. The guy is drunk with love. She’s always on his mind, but imprisoned as much today as she was then, seeing a vision of her, in a cage, literally outside of his top story window, so close but fatally out of reach, opposite his hotel dwelling. And freeing her from it seems impossible.

 

Davide does happen to be married, but that doesn’t seem to stop the allurement. He even gives “the witch” his wedding ring when she asks for it, an uncontrollable impulse of switching over his fidelity. In a way, by carrying his wedding ring, she carries his love with her. 

Davide’s wife does love him, but her tears suggests that she can feel he is switching on her. Honestly, there’s really nothing wrong with his wife; she (Touzet) looks great, but she ends up coming off as a shunned goddess in favor of “the witch” who has re-entered Davide’s life.

 

The big showstopper set piece that most will remember this film by happens when Davide appears to find himself at some kind of nexus between past and present (where everyone can get their freak on), and a mass of witchlike peasants accost him. I believe this is the witches’ sabbath the title alludes to. (I want to say they represent a hedonistic world that Maddalena is a part of.) 

Eventually, the wall of witches slowly encroaches upon him, emerging from the fog and lightning, almost as if they are about to attack, but Davide seems to show no fear and is happy to come off just as crazy as them. It kind of reminds me of being in a nightmare, and instead of getting scared or bewildered you decide to play along and have fun in the moment, maybe even try to overpower it; and eventually the nightmare turns playful. By doing this, it’s like he’s allowed himself to enter a society he otherwise wouldn’t really belong to in order to better stay connected with Maddalena and this kind of foreign world she inhabits. Maybe they also represent all of the crazy patients he has to deal with as a psychiatrist.

 

This part plays out for a while, feeling like interpretive dance. It’s like Ezralow and all the extras and actors involved successfully got in touch with their inner witch. Everyone seems to lose themselves in the moment, and the outcome to the spectacle is marvelously spellbinding, creative, and original. Something about it feels impromptu, where everyone is giving it their all and just running with it. The film kind of enters and exits this part as if it was a dream.

 

I like the complementary past and present settings in the film. Both feel very authentic. The separation between the timelines seems to become irrelevant after a while, as the past emits an energy that melds with the present. I eventually found myself not concerned if we were in the present, past, or some other realm. That all of the old buildings (I’m mostly talking about the marvelous external view of the buildings of Pitigliano) in the present setting haven’t changed in centuries also contributes to the feeling of being in some kind of timeless realm.

 

When all is said and done, you can’t help but ask yourself if it’s all just Davide’s fancy, but it’s better to accept that Maddalena is an immortal witch, and it was always Davide’s fate to dance with the witches.  

The Witches’ Sabbath is kind of a dense film that I also found enjoyable watching in segments. It feels like you can attempt to watch it all together or focus in on individual sections to savor and even rewatch to get the most out of the film. I feel it’s an unfairly shunned worthwhile Italian horror/drama that too many are oblivious of. Like many others, it doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. 

© At the Mansion of Madness

Obscene Desire / L'osceno desiderio (1978)

I recently had the pleasure of discovering the hidden gem Obscene Desire for myself, and it could not have been timelier. Just as I was gearing up to review it, after taking several blurry looking screen grabs, I happened to find out that Vinegar Syndrome was releasing it on Blu-ray as part of their Bloodstained Italy three-movie set, which also included The Bloodstained Lawn (1973) and Death Falls Lightly (1972), so I decided to hold off until my pre-order came in. 

For me, the wait for a restoration of Obscene Desire was really short (only a few months after first watching it), in comparison to the whole decade I waited to finally see a restored The Witches Mountain (1973). It is, of course, a much appreciated big improvement over what was available before, and it’s an even greater delight to watch Marisa Mell as the lead, Amanda, in this pretty eclectic Spanish-Italian horror film. Here, she is not playing her typical swindling seductive murderess type (as seen in movies like Marta (1971) and Diary of an Erotic Murderess (1975)) but rather a vulnerable and pregnant newlywed, full of anxiety, who also gets to act the hell out of certain parts. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of her swindlers, but I always thought Marisa Mell was underused in horror and fantasy. She played a seductive ghost in Parapsycho – Spektrum der Angst (1975) and had an attractive side role in Ring of Darkness (1979), but I’m still grateful for this consolidation of a murder mystery, psychological thriller, and Exorcist horror film with Marisa Mell at the helm. I also have to point out that during the climax, she does an awesome Gene Simmons impression that makes my night every time I see it.

Deep Shock (2019)

Deep Shock is another highly awarded short film written and directed by Italian filmmaker Davide Melini that is a return and a celebration of the classic giallo film but with a modern look and feel. It has the added bonus of also being a horror film, with both a giallo and demonic ghost story that seem to run side-by-side but also meet up and interconnect nicely, so if you like a little bit of The Changeling and The Exorcist to go with your Deep Red, there’s a good chance this horror/giallo hybrid might be your cup of tea. At thirty minutes, it far from overstays its welcome. In fact, I felt like watching it again shortly after my first viewing. 

The film was produced in the UK and was shot together with Melini’s other short Lion using the same crew, with Deep Shock taking eight and a half days to shoot. This one has a more expanded cast than the other three short films from Melini I’ve covered, as the story is bigger with themes of grief, trauma, nightmares, mystery, murder, family curses, and religion among others, while also including the beloved black gloved killer whose identity will be revealed when the time is right. 

Just in the opening scene alone, I felt like I noticed homages to three different Argento films, which feels appropriate, before it launches into its own story, starting with a string of nightmare sequences with the film’s lead heroine Sarah (Muireann Bird).

Diabolicamente... Letizia / Sex, Demons and Death (1975)

“The oppressed have assimilated their fate so well that they become indignant if we offer them a less repressed sexual future.” – Emmanuelle Arsan – Mon Emmanuelle, leur pape et mon Eros  

The name Letizia means “joy,” and one can’t help but feel joy when a name like Letizia rolls off the tongue. So, there’s a bitter irony to the title character of Salvatore Bugnatelli’s Diabolicamente… Letizia baring the sweetness of joyful pleasure only to turn out to be quite the devilish killjoy.

Diabolicamente… Letizia (also known as Sex, Demons and Death) is another peculiar erotic Italian horror that kind of stuck with me after only seeing it once about six years ago. There is something off-kilter and ominous about it, with a repressive, isolated autumnal villa setting involving a capricious young woman, Letizia (Franca Gonella- Zelda 1974), moving in and sexually perturbing the idle and seemingly peaceful lifestyles of her Aunt Micaela (Magda Konopka) and Uncle Marcello (Gabriele Tinti). The resulting erotic situations are intentionally built up only to push back and break the spell with some sort of unease, be it emotional confliction, humiliation, mockery, or even a jump scare, brought about by the sexually manipulative Letizia. Is she really some kind of sexual she-wolf demoness or do these characters have some serious hangups?

La lunga notte di Veronique / But You Were Dead (1966)

“There are two kinds of taste, the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.” – Henry James 

Even with its familiar look (that darkly romantic title and poster art baiting me in), I could still sense La lunga notte de Veronique was going to be a little bit different than the ‘60s/’70s Italian gothic horrors I’m accustomed to (and still a big fan of). No obvious Poe, Le Fanu, Stoker, Lovecraft, Shelley, or Sade influences. No witches, black masses, zombies, blood countesses, demons, masked killers, sadistic crimson executioners, or satanic love interests, just an effective, tragic ghost romance, without much in the way of ambiguity. 

Currently, it doesn’t seem to have much of a fanbase, but the film is lowkey intriguing. I only just came across it recently, and it is somewhat of a pleasant surprise and a nice addition to the ever-growing collection of underseen Eurocult that will hopefully see a restored release someday. 

Shadow of Illusion / Ombre roventi (1970)

“I understand those who want to live against this century, but I fear those who believe they can live outside of it.” – Emmanuelle Arsan – Mon Emmanuelle, leur pape et mon Eros  

Cults erect out of myth. Myth gives rise to cults. Their members become so enamored in myth that they become grossly detached from reality. Yet, they’ll maintain a strong conviction and belief that they are the ones who are really in tune with reality, above all others. And when this happens, people get hurt.

For fans of ‘60s/70s Italian thrillers, it’s the prospect of a deadly hippie cult that gives a film like Shadow of Illusion its primary appeal to genre explorers, and while that promising aspect might bring us here, we end up finding even more to like about it. One of the film’s strong points is that it does integrate Egyptian mythology, particularly The Osiris Myth, into its plot rather nicely, even to the point of provoking further viewer interest.  

Shadow of Illusion is directed by Mario Caiano (Nightmare Castle (1965) and Eye in the Labyrinth (1972)) and is quite the excavation for the Eurocult archeologist. It is indeed an enjoyable but unusual watch that kind of feels at home alongside other paranoid Italian occult thrillers like All the Colors of the Dark (1972), The Cat in Heat (1972), or even The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974).

The Unnaturals / Schreie in der Nacht (1969)

When poring over the impressively diverse range of genre films from Antonio Margheriti, I realize there’s still a lot more I need to see. I have more blind spots here than I care to admit. I plan on eventually rectifying this issue in good time, maybe starting with some of the derivative sounding ‘80s action/adventure stuff like The Last Blood (1983) or The Ark of the Sun God (1984). I do have a soft spot for retro space movies, so something like Assignment: Outer Space (1960), Margheriti’s first full film as director, would probably make my day. I have been a big fan of Margheriti’s exquisite gothic horror films for quite some time (no surprise there), and I’ve been itching to review one of his least talked about (as far as I can tell) gothic horrors, The Unnaturals / Contronatura. 

I thought this German / Italian co-production kind of had a classic comic book feel to it (something kind of in the vein of EC’s Crime SuspenStories). It’s also been compared to the krimi thriller, with all the fixings of a crime fueled storyline, only instead of a detective or Scotland Yard, the criminal foil and justice comes in the form of the supernatural beyond. There’s also no denying that the 1920s setting, primarily in a gloomy haunted mansion during a long meditative séance, hosted by none other than Luciano Pigozzi, with a bunch of stranded shady characters seeking shelter on a dark and stormy night is gothic horror as fuck. This is the kind of gathering that I consider a good time.

Night of the Damned / La notte dei dannati (1971)

“Thank Heaven! The crisis / The danger is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last /, and the fever called “Living” is conquered at last.” Edgar Allan Poe 

Horror films are more traditionally associated with anxiety and sleepless nights. Funny, then, how we tend to look towards horror sometimes to wind down after the day. Now, I love to be scared and shocked just as much as any horror fan, but what about a horror film that can have the opposite effect, one that puts you to sleep through relaxation and comfort? Thanks to the usual languid pace and soothing dark ambiance, a lot of older gothic horror films can serve as a pretty good example of this, such as the gothic literary mashup Night of the Damned. 

Directed by Filippo Walter Ratti and written by Aldo Marcovecchio, Night of the Damned is a quaint little ‘70s Italian gothic horror that hits a lot of the right notes when it comes to style, mood, and atmosphere. Sure, there is better to pick from, but something about this film made me want to revisit and connect with it on a deeper level. The Poe-inspired world is worth getting lost in, and it appeals to my love for the supernatural femme fatales who reign from their remote dark castles, with the occult and hedonistic rituals that usually accompany them.

Death Falls Lightly / La morte scende leggera (1972)

“When analyzed with any degree of honesty, jealous behavior appears, in reality, neither as a duty nor a right, but as a shabby dross of our obsession with possessing.” – Emmanuelle Arsan – L’hypothese d’Eros 

A weekend getaway at a resort hotel with your significant other is most people’s idea of a relaxing holiday, but having to hide out in a creepy, possibly haunted hotel with your mistress for the weekend, because your wife turned up murdered, sounds like a more interesting time to me. 

Death Falls Lightly is one of two thrillers directed and co-written by Leopoldo Savona (the other being Byleth – The Demon of Incest (1972)) that I commend for its unusual and multidirectional approach. You’re not really sure what they’re going for, but you kind of like it anyways. Like Byleth, it’s a little hard to compare to other films of its ilk, since it’s kind of an oddball example. It reaches for different ideas, perhaps one too many, while maintaining that appealing ’70s Euro-genre ascetic, so you’re getting something both different and familiar at the same time. Whether or not it’s actually any good is somewhat difficult to tell by the film’s end. 

I personally find this one delightful, as it is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades genre movie that borrows from crime, mystery, giallo, erotic, fantastical, psychological, and occult horror, so it’s like there’s a little bit of something for everyone. It is mostly centered around a claustrophobic and somewhat dark and depressing hotel. Interestingly, this movie predicts The Shining during a few moments, and my mind even thought a little of Silent Hill at times.

Bloody Pit of Horror / Il boia scarlatto (1965)

Fun is only partially the name of the game with a film like Bloody Pit of Horror. With its comic book style influence, there’s lots of fun to be had, but it’s got a mean side too, as sadism is also the name of the game. The mix of fun and dark in the film is an influence from a style of Italian adult-oriented superhero, crime, and erotic comics known as Fumetti Neri, which consists, among many others, of flamboyant masked super heroes/villains: Diabolik, Kriminal, Mister-X, and Satanik. The antagonist in Bloody Pit of Horror could’ve easily come out of this subgenre, but he’s no fantastic masked superman. He’s a fantastically cruel masked super-sadistic-madman, the Crimson Executioner, played with love, enthusiasm, and high energy by a chiseled Mickey Hargitay.

The Devil’s Lover / L’amante del demonio (1972)

“Now I have you with me, under my power. Our love grows stronger now with every hour. Look into my eyes, you will see who I am. My name is Lucifer, please take my hand.” – Black Sabbath 

When Satan comes to town, he sets his sights on the biggest catch in The Devil’s Lover, or my personal favorite alternate title Lucifera: Demonlover. 

I don’t know why, but it’s taken me many years to revisit this Italian gothic horror. The last time I watched it was in 2009 when I picked up the pan-and-scan Mya DVD. Despite the poor picture quality, I was happy to have it, as I probably wouldn’t have ended up knowing about it otherwise, but I am surprised the film never had an upgrade since. As far as I can tell, the only way to see it in 2022 is still as a censored and murky full screen film [Update (December 2023): Severin has released this film on Blu-ray uncut and restored in Volume 2 of their amazing Danza Macabre Italian gothic horror boxsets]. 

Even though it was restrained, my fondest memory of this film was the grand love scene between a nude Rosalba Neri and a clothed, caped Devil figure, played by Edmund Purdom. I was in awe at the visual of Rosalba’s sideways lying profile figure that was partially shrouded by the devil’s cape as he embraced her. It certainly has the same kind of energy as the classic reclining nude paintings, such as La Grande Odalisque (1814) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres or The Rokeby Venus (1647-1651) by Diego Velázquez.

Nude for Satan / Nuda per Satana (1974)

“Think of nothing but the fact that you are marrying me, and are promising to love and obey me forever, past death, into eternity!” – Vincent, Lord Satan (Louisa Bronte)

A movie called Nude for Satan already sounds pretty good without even knowing the plot. The notion of satanic panic combined with Italian exploitation resulted in an impulse buy for me. When I looked the DVD case over, I was like, “yes, please!” Plus, it’s from the same director, Luigi Batzella, of The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973) and The Beast in Heat (1977). And, it stars one of the most amazing Italian scream queens, Rita Calderoni. There’s lots of promise here. 

If you are watching the Dutch Sodemented DVD version of this film, there will be p#rn, as in hardcore inserts of other actors and body-doubles legitimately bumping uglies. If you think that will take you out of the movie, I would recommend one of the DVDs released by Redemption instead, or check it out on Redemption TV.

Demons 5: The Devil's Veil / La maschera del demonio (1989)

Lamberto Bava’s made for television Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil really took me by surprise when I first saw it. Historically, it’s been pretty rare, so, years ago, when a friend pointed out to me that the film had been uploaded to their YouTube page, I initially watched it as a curiosity (always going the extra mile when it comes to Italian horror). Being somewhat forgotten and without much praise and recommendation to go off of, I was expecting a mediocre ‘80s horror film, but the experience was really quite technically impressive and entertaining, with several memorable horror sequences. Story wise, I’ll admit, it was a little hard to stay invested the entire time, but I loved Sergio Stivaletti’s creature effects, and I really appreciated the sometimes subtle and sometimes startling approach the movie took to demonic possession. There’s just a number of really nice touches in how peculiar the characters act when it’s apparent some kind of demonic force is acting on them, a similar kind of peculiarity that I appreciated in The Church (1989) from Michele Soavi, who also stars in this.

Zeder / Revenge of the Dead (1983)

Pupi Avati’s Zeder has been an odd enigma of an Italian horror film to me. I’m not really sure what it is trying to do, but its mystique and mismatched place in the genre are part of what make it special. While watching it, I usually wonder what it is we are looking for or what the lead character is so obsessed and serious about, and yet I can't help always feeling drawn in. It’s a movie searching for something deep and menacing, and it does eventually find it, but the journey along the way is a challenging, unsettling, and memorable one with an impressively creepy payoff and a serious lead performance from Deep Red’s (1975) Gabriele Lavia. I also like the way it alludes to a kind of sinister underbelly to the city in a way that is similar to Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974). 

What I buy most about Zeder is the academic and research side, fixating on knowing and overcoming death. The scientific field approach, with shady occultist researchers and their cameras and experimental equipment is pivotal to one of the best scenes. 

Stefano’s (Lavia) investigations become a paranoid obsession that he never really lets up on once he starts on it. Being a writer and a college student (overdue for graduation it seems), his focus feels like a thesis from hell.

Blood and Roses / Et mourir de plaisir (1960)

“Roses always fade in a Vampire’s hand.”-Carmilla (Annette Stroyberg) 

I’ve always loved the supernatural femme fatale Carmilla since I was first introduced to her in Vicente Aranda’s The Blood Spattered Bride (1972). There was something so appealing about the sapphic predatory vampiress from J.S. Le Fanu’s 1872 novella, whose influence was all over the erotic vampire films from the 1960s and 1970s I loved, and more. After I reviewed The Blood Spattered Bride, naturally, I felt compelled to read Carmilla, a short but marvelous piece of gothic literature. I loved the dark, forested isolated castle setting and the peculiar relationship that develops between Laura and Carmilla. After reading it, I felt I had hipster boasting rights to tell people who never heard of it that I knew of and read a vampire book that was written twenty-five years before the more well-known Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Now, the book, Dracula is much more developed, but it is astounding how many story similarities there are between Dracula and Carmilla (itself sharing similarities to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s unfinished Christabel (1816)). I don’t think there can be any doubt that Carmilla heavily influenced Dracula. 

It’s been a delight to explore different adaptations of Carmilla, such as The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Crypt of the Vampire (1964) as well as movies influenced by Carmilla like Vampyros Lesbos (1971) and Daughters of Darkness (1971). I remember thinking back in 2013 that the time was right for new Carmilla movies. I must have been asleep the last seven years, because I only recently learned that there have been new Carmilla films being made, such as The Unwanted (2014), The Curse of Styria (2014), Carmilla (2015), a Carmilla web-series that eventually got a follow-up movie called Carmilla the Movie (2017), and most recently Carmilla (2019) from Emily Harris. I just recently checked out the 2019 movie, and all I can say is, what a powerful ending. I’d say it comes pretty close to the modern Carmilla film I was hoping for.

Evil Eye / Malocchio (1975)

Evil Eye is that kind of movie that gracefully tries to do it all but ends up not really knowing what to do with itself afterwards. When looking at the film as a whole, it feels like a nice recap of the enduring motifs of the giallo, occult, gothic horror, and erotica film, and for that it will surely find a place in the hearts of Eurocult fans (it certainly has for me), but it’s hard to tell if it is a work of genius, a mistake of a masterpiece, or just an empty, routine cash-in. Is it great or not-great? I honestly have referred to it as both.
  
The Spanish, Italian, Mexican co-production Evil Eye (aka Mal de ojo in Spain, Malocchio and Eroticofollia in Italy, and Más allá del exorcismo in Mexico) is directed and co-written by Mario Siciliano. It was also co-written by Spanish writers Julio Buchs and Federico De Urrutia. Interestingly, Buchs and De Urrutia have several co-writing credits together, such as Alta tension (1972) and A Bullet for Sandoval (1969), many of which Buchs directed. Evil Eye seems to be the very last film either writer worked on. Julio Buchs died in 1973 before the film was released.

Sex of the Devil / Il sesso del diavolo - Trittico (1971)

How could any Eurocult horror fan resist being attracted to a movie with a poster like this and a title like Sex of the Devil? Whether or not the movie delivers what it promises on the cover is another matter, but when beholding such an epic, suggestively satanic, occult, and erotic poster like this one (centering on what I thought looked a little like a possessed Mia farrow), a spectacular fantasy of a movie is birthed in the mind of the observer, one that is often very different from the movie in reality, for better or worse. I admit to initially being attracted and baited in to this film based solely on this poster. Sex of the Devil not surprisingly turned out to be something other than I had imagined, and if it weren’t for that advertisement I may have never found it. So basically, the movie poster did its job, and I slowly fell in love with another movie.

Despite not being what I expected and bearing the usual pacing and plot resolution issues, Sex of the Devil still delivered the goods, and, in the end, it ended up delivering what it promised on the poster as well.

A Whisper in the Dark / Un sussurro nel buio (1976)

A Whisper in the Dark is a personal favorite of mine. It has been referred to as the Italian The Turn of the Screw (1898) and is a subtle take on the haunted family category of storytelling, focusing on a wealthy family living in a gorgeous and at times spooky villa that’s like a hotel resort (probably because it was filmed at a hotel, the five-star Hotel Villa Condulmer near Venice). It’s got that gothic horror aesthetic but downplays the horror in favor of exploring family dynamics with shades of the supernatural that are symbolic of unresolved family problems. The supernatural is always kept ambiguous; almost everything strange that happens can be explained, but the circumstances do leave a lot to the imagination. As is usually the case, the ambiguity is the film’s strength and its weakness.

The cinematography by Claudio Cirillo is really the main attraction, and with Marcello Aliprandi’s direction, the visuals, coupled with Pino Donaggio’s sweet and melancholic score, end up being the stuff of fairytales, comprising some of the most majestic locations and set pieces. The villa and its somber exterior and grounds, dating back to the sixteenth century, have a deep, haunting presence, a rich sense of past generations emanating from it. And the children’s ball is an enchanting segment, with costumes and constantly falling confetti, which concludes with a phantasmagoric night time burning of an effigy floating on the river. According to Cirillo the different weather conditions, such as the foggy atmosphere seen during the opening credits, were by chance. Listening to Cirillo vibrantly talk about his craft on the NoShame DVD interview, you can tell the man is an artist.

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.

Terror Creatures from the Grave / 5 tombe per un medium (1965)

The onset of the Halloween season this year has really put me on a black-and-white horror kick for some reason. I’m looking forward to checking out some classics I haven’t seen yet, such as City of the Dead (1960) and Eyes Without a Face (1960), and revisiting some favorites like Carnival of Souls (1962) and Night of the Living Dead (1968).

I used to approach black-and-white movies apprehensively, thinking that they would likely be a boring chore to sit through. I missed out on discovering a lot of classics when I was younger with this mindset, a mindset that surprises me considering that I had always been able to enjoy black-and-white TV-shows as a kid like Lassie and The Three Stooges, which happened to give me the false perception that the world must’ve been in black-and-white back then. I had always preferred color, but nowadays I really have no preference. There’s something both oppressive and romantic about black-and-white cinematography, a separate experience with its own charm that I don’t think is inferior to color cinematography. What finally gave me a taste for black-and-white film and caused me to not see it as a diminished experience due to technological limitation was Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), which also turned my interest to the black-and-white Italian horrors of the ‘60s that I probably would’ve had no interest in otherwise.