The Spider Labyrinth (1988)

Though, perhaps, a bit sluggish in some places, there’s still something compelling about the way The Spider Labyrinth attempts to unnerve viewers with the threat of a perpetual, unexplainable horror, as we are taken along with the young Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) on his travel assignment to Budapest to investigate the sudden silence from an important collaborator on an international project. What lies in wait for the protagonist in a little niche hidden from the rest of the world is a series of weird and deadly occurrences with Lovecraftian origins.

This is a wholly dark and wicked Italian Horror that lacks any kind of sense of humor and is just as keen on exciting Lovecraft and Argento fans as it is at trying to disturb them. The horror set pieces and visual effects by Sergio Stivaletti, which if used in any other movie would’ve screamed campy ‘80s, are creepy and, at times, capable of stimulating a freaked-out experience, more so than expected. While the horror sequences themselves are exceptional, it’s the demented tone of the film that makes them work in a manner that penetrates the psych in unsettling ways.

The film score consists of a lounge cue and a bevy of traditional orchestral pieces that while making the film less quirky, nonetheless, distinguishes it from the more rock/synth laden soundtracks of its Italian horror contemporaries. The sound effects used to represent the snarling and growling from the spider-witch in the film was probably a bit much, sounding a lot like an agitated critter, but still nonetheless contributed to one of the more brutally insane killer witches (wickedly and quite energetically played by Margareta von Krauss) I’ve seen on screen.

The Shiver of the Vampires (1971)

The topic of famous seductresses in history is a particularly fascinating one, for instance Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Salome, and Catherine the Great to name a few. There are most certainly negative connotations with seduction, as it is easy to imagine the integrity of the seduced being compromised, more so in the case of folklore, with seductresses like Lilith, Lorelei, and Circe for example. The most alluring predatory seductress in fantasy would have to be the vampiress, being such a beautiful creature on the outside but a foul, filthy thing on the inside, sexually enticing her prey, killing the unfortunate or making them like her in the process. The story that tells the tale of such a vampire is an early one from Jean Rollin entitled The Shiver of The Vampires, which I’d like to share with you, my ever loving readers.

On their way to a honeymoon in Italy, a newlywed couple, Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand) and his luscious bride, Isle (Sandra Julien), decide to spend part of their honeymoon in an old castle that belongs to Isle’s two cousins, whom she desires to visit with. They learn in the village that the two owners of the castle have just passed away the day before and were entombed in the cemetery, and the only occupants in the castle now are the servants. Upon arrival, the couple is shown to their room by two beautiful servants. Upset and in mourning over the loss of her cousins, Isle wishes to sleep alone on the first night. Her husband respects her wishes and rooms elsewhere, and later when the clock strikes midnight, Isle receives a visit from a mysterious female presence, who goes by Isolde (Dominique). 

This visitor seduces Isle, putting her in a hypnotic state, luring her to the graveyard at night to ceremoniously bite her neck and feed off her blood, just enough to not kill her. The seduced Isle becomes obsessed with these nocturnal meetings with the vampiric Isolde that she continually wishes to be alone at night. Of course Isle’s behavior doesn’t sit well with Antoine who attempts to get to the bottom of things when Isle’s cousins, previously thought dead, begin to make appearances while his wife, who does not wish to leave the castle, is drawn further and further to becoming something else, as she begins to show a sensitivity to sunlight and an appetite for dove’s blood.

  

The Shiver of the Vampires is somewhat of an apex in Rollin’s early career; the artist had indeed been improving with each effort, further developing and nearly perfecting at this point what he was trying to achieve with his previous works, The Nude Vampire and The Rape of the Vampire (The very first French vampire film). With Shiver, Rollin seems well past the beginner phase in his horror output, paying heed to a good narrative while still maintaining that artistic flair with successful experimentation and new ideas. Some of the ingenious erotic moments serve a purpose to the story while others might seem a bit random. The proceedings are still nice and weird, the way we like them, especially in this case with the inclusion of an entertaining pair of crazy, intellectual weirdoes, Isle’s two vampire cousins (Michel Delahaye and Jacques Robiolles). The hard-hitting prog-rock soundtrack, from the band Acanthus, also works very nicely at generating excitement and enhancing the fun with something that is akin to head bangin’ in a graveyard.

Venomous Vixens: Mireille Dargent

French actress Mireille Dargent acted in six movies, four of which were for director Jean Rollin. The one she’s most known for is a Rollin film where her presence reverberated inside my memory, ever since I saw it. This film is Requiem for a Vampire, where the sultry redhead appears alongside one-half of the Castel twins, Marie-Pierre Castel. The two actresses play a couple of inseparable lovers, who after escaping some sort of crime heist, curiously dressed as clowns, eventually find themselves in vampire territory. Interestingly enough, we are introduced to this clown couple and their male companion at the start of the film in a high speed chase with guns blazing. After losing their pursuers, their male companion passes away, not surviving his gunshot wound. The two clowns, named Michelle (Dargent) and Marie (Castel), set fire to their car, with the deceased’s body inside of it, before travelling off on foot and on their own. When they wash off the paint and lose their clown getup, it’s revealed, not surprisingly, that there were a couple of attractive girls underneath the clown makeup. 

The Reincarnation of Isabel (1973)

If ever there was a movie that epitomized the weird, scattered, and strangely erotic nature of Eurohorror the most, that film would most likely be The Reincarnation of Isabel. It’s a work of art where a clear goal-driven narrative seems to have either been purposefully or unknowingly neglected. It’s still a good story but one that is awkwardly told. It may just as well have been that having a story spoon-fed to viewers was of little importance in this case, as director Renato Polselli (Delirium, The Vampire and the Ballerina) might’ve felt he had a lot more to offer by instead unloading his tale of reincarnation in a rather erratic fashion, frequently diverging from the narrative for the sake of overusing the film’s seductive set pieces, with events happening for unclear reasons and moving in unclear directions. It is also nonetheless done with gusto and a unique painterly craftsmanship. Fans of the weird and sexy side of Eurohorror should consider looking to The Reincarnation of Isabel to get their regular fix.

A supposed witch, Isabella (Rita, Nude for Satan, Calderoni), was staked and burned at an altar in front of an attentive mob of villagers. Centuries later, someone or something with a following of cultists and vampires is trying to revive/reincarnate the Great Mistress, Isabella, and they’ll sacrifice as many virgins as it takes for her to live again. Women are turning up dead with their hearts missing and strange bite marks on their necks. It all seems to be connected to a castle that has just been bought and occupied by a Mr. Jack Nelson (Mickey, Bloody Pit of Horror, Hargitay), his wife, and his stepdaughter, Laureen (also played by Calderoni). A special party in celebration of Laureen’s engagement to a local man is underway in the castle, and the epoch involving Isabella’s persecution in the long distant past begins to haunt the inhabitants in erotically bizarre and deadly ways.

What can I say about Rita Calderoni? She’s a delightful and committed lead with very pure good looks. Interestingly enough like in the film Nude for Satan, there are moments where she inexplicably has a single breast exposed without seeming to notice or care that her boob is showing. Seeing her treat us to this provocative sight of her in more than one movie has caused me to consider this look to be her trademark. Calderoni also puts on a convincing performance with her portrayal of the persecuted Isabel. She looks like she went through a lot for us, and it actually looks like it hurts when they drive a stake through her.

A Black Ribbon for Deborah (1974)

Marina Malfatti is Deborah, a sterile woman who wants to bear a child more than anything. She’s told by her doctor to give up all hope of having a child; for in her condition it would take a miracle, and miracles don’t exist. This condition is like a malediction to her, and it’s having a ruinous effect on the marriage between her and her scientist husband, Michel (Bradford Dillman), who is earnestly attempting to push for a happy marriage, but his wife’s occasional breakdowns are sometimes too much for him. Deborah doesn’t seem to realize it, but she also happens to be a very powerful medium, and after she and her husband investigate a car accident they’ve just witnessed, Deborah has an encounter with a dying pregnant woman, Mira (Delia Boccardo), which sets the stage for a wholehearted and satisfying mystery. 

I love genre actresses like Edwige Fenech and Rosalba Neri, but I sometimes wonder: what about Marina Malfatti? Sure, she wasn’t as wildly sexual as her peers, but she still made for lovely company as a supporting actress in films like All the Colors of the Dark and The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave. Until now I’ve never had the chance to view her as a leading lady, and with A Black Ribbon for Deborah, Malfatti has the chance to prove herself as the lead character, and she carries this eerie take on parapsychology on her shoulders rather well.

Her short hairstyle here seems like an odd choice; it took me a while to get used to it, although the look grew on me and is something that I’ve come to readily identify her role in this film with. Being that a lot of these films were influenced by Rosemary’s Baby, the choice of hairstyle was likely to give her a Mia Farrow vibe.

Rochelle, Rochelle

Of all the fake movies referenced in several Seinfeld episodes, one in particular Rochelle, Rochelle is one that actually looks interesting to me. I usually get a chuckle from some of the silly fake movie titles mentioned in the series like Checkmate, Sack Lunch, Chunnel, and Prognosis Negative, but Rochelle, Rochelle appeals to the inner cult movie fan in me, and I just can’t help wishing that the movie was real and directed by someone like Jess Franco. The tagline: “A young girl's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk” reminds me of Franco’s Eugenie… the story of her journey into perversion, and it also brings to mind Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle Around the World. Could it be that the writers of Seinfeld had these types of films in mind when coming up with the Rochelle, Rochelle gag? In the series, the movie is referred to as foreign and apparently generated a lot of hype, but the general response ended up being that the plot was unbearable, and it was just the nudity that made it revered. Now I absolutely love this kind of stuff (especially if there are horror elements fused in), so you usually won’t find me making such remarks.

What do you think? Is there more to most foreign erotic movies than just the sex and nudity?
  

The Sect / La setta (1991)

Beautiful dreams turn into pulse pounding nightmares in Michele Soavi’s highly intricate cult-conspiracy masterpiece, THE SECT (aka THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER).  

Soavi is the type of director that seems to make every movie as if it was his last, taking the chance to squeeze in as many ideas, symbolism, and set pieces as possible. The result is eclectic and convoluted but also spellbinding, as in THE SECT and CEMETERY MAN, with the former being the more ominous and downbeat of the two, likely the result of everyone working to appease the boss-man, Dario Argento. 

Part of the reason for the intricacy is because THE SECT is a product of three different writers, Argento, Soavi, and Gianni Romoli,* all of whom seemed to have their own visions. The production of the movie started with a screenplay for an unrealized movie called CATACOMBS by Romoli, and Argento took it and added his input, which included references to The Rolling Stones (he’s a huge fan).* Soavi further incorporated a script from an unrealized movie of his, THE WELL, and layered it with esotericism and Celtic symbolism, and the seemingly independent ideas from three different heads was further refined and finalized by Romoli* into one hellava movie.

Nevertheless, the convoluted nature of the film has harmed it for a large fraction of viewers, making it difficult to follow and giving it an underlining annoyance that the movie may not be going anywhere. Therefore, the recommended way to view this is to just concern oneself with what is taking place at hand without worrying about where the story is leading to. It’s best to enjoy the individual segments for what they’re worth, and being that there’s a lot of gold here, they’re worth a lot.

Day of the Dead (1985)

My contribution to Month of the living Dead over at Blood Sucking Geek is an article for my favorite zombie film. Head over to read what I have to say about it, and be sure get in on all of the zombie fun that’s taking place this month.

https://thebloodsuckinggeek.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/day-of-the-dead-1985/