The Girl in Room 2A

The Girl in Room 2A

Original Title: La casa della paura

Directed by: William L. Rose

Italy, 1974

Horror/Thriller, 90min

Distributed by: Mondo Macabro

Dick Randall, happy go lucky archetype of an American film producer/ writer/actor, with a burning passion for low budget trash and sleaze fare. Amongst his mighty catalogue of productions prowls some of the grittiest dazzling and favoured exploitations flicks co-produced between the USA and Italy, Spain, France, Philippines, Taiwan, South-Korea, Thailand and on and on and on. I’ll say stuff like Guido Zurli’s Lo stranglatore di Vienna (The Mad Butcher) 1971, Fernando Merighi’s Casa d’appuntamento (The French Sex Murders) 1972, Mario Bava’s Quante volte… quella note (Four Times that Night) 1972, Eddie Nicart’s For Y’ur Height Only 1981 and Juan Piquer Simón’s Mil gritos tiene la noche (Pieces) 1982 and you’ll probably find at least one title you like, and then you have a perfect image of what Randall got up to in his thirty years as producer of cheap and cheerful trash cinema.

If you’ve been keeping up with Mondo Macabro’s catalogue these last couple of years, you will definitely have seen the names of several Dick Randall produced movies, amongst them the more recently released gialloesque sleaze thriller, The Girl in Room 2A.

A pretty grim initial attack – during the opening credits, talk about being effective - eagerly sets the tone, as a young woman is kidnapped by masked strangers, drugged, striped naked, strung up to the beams of a roof, tortured and then tossed off the side of a cliff to her death… There’s no doubt about it, from here on this movie is probably going to be on the rough side.

In stark contrast to the violent opening, we’re introduced to our protagonist Margaret Bradley [Daniela Giordano] as she’s released from prison peacefuly chatting to the wardens. She goes straight to her halfwayhouse under the supervision of Mrs Grant [Giovanna Galletti], claims to have been incarcerated innocently, and that it all had been a mistake, which obviously makes her backstory suddenly become intriguing. To thicken up the plot, there’s a lurky geezer following her around, and installed in her temporary residence, she notices a big blob of red – supposedly blood – that won’t wash out from the floor of her room. Definitely lifting a trick of two from the Italian Giallo genre, shutters slam, the landlady acts suspicious, footsteps stalk outside her door at night, a character has a mannequin fetish, and a red gowned, red masked figure haunts her dreams… but is it a dream?

By chance the landlady’s son Frank [Angelo Infanti], is in cohorts with the sinister Mr Dreese [Raf Vallone] who takes an eager eye to Margaret. There’s a little hook that keeps Margret from leaving the cooky landlady and her snooping son, Margaret can’t leave before she’s paid the first rent. So she need’s dosh too become free… With a small loan of twenty bucks from her parole officer and friend Alicia Sundberg [Eurohorror icon Rosalba Neri], Margaret starts to plan her move to freedom and escape from the suspicions apartment of Mrs Grant.

Along the way, we learn just how vile Dreese and the man in red can be, as they turns on a former business partner, torturing him and driving him off a cliff in a burning car. The plot thickens when Jack Whitman [John Scanlon] turns up, telling Margaret the story of his sister’s suicide. Edie Whitman was also the previous tenant of Mrs Grant, and also a former resident of room 2A.

Jack ignites his own little subplot, which goes via Edie’s boyfriend Charlie [Brad Harris], and his wife Claire [Dada Gallotti], who clarify both Margaret and the audience’s suspicion that Mrs Grant’s hostel is being used as a menagerie of victims for the Red masked man’s sadistic pleasure. When Charlie tells Jack Edie ended up at Mrs Grant’s after a short spin in prison, it becomes clear that Margaret better stay on her toes. Which doesn’t stop her or the supposed mourning Jack from dropping out of heir clothes and getting it off, whilst Frank peeps on them from the other side of the curtains…

The threat against Margaret is pretty solid now, and gearing up for the last act, the red hooded figure and his thugs make their grand entrance.  Chained up and locked in a small cell in a dank chateau Margaret finally learns what the strange cult is all about, and how they are the only ones who can help her, and the other” Bad girls” repent their sins. It’s a small part, but Karin Schubert is featured as Maria, yet another young woman to move into the Grant hostel, and as we have already learned, bad girls must be punished. Subplots and main narrative all come together in a final climactic encounter where answers are given and the identity of the masked red figure is revealed.

The Girl in Room 2A never really manages to get up there with the great Gialli, although it certainly does tap into genre traits and relies heavily on something of an investigation plot. There could have been more moments where nudity and violence come together, and the greater part of the hooded man’s sadistic torture is told through flashbacks. It is a great moment of depravity, and a quick internet search makes me wonder if there was an even rougher cut of the film, as some seventies bush found on the net, isn’t featured in the film. It could also be the classic publicity shot stunt, so let’s not pay too much attention to that. I’d easily have seen more of it, but despite being an important part of establishing the threat of the climax, it’s pretty sparse. The opening premise certainly doesn’t come through even though the final scenes have a great evil cult, complete with bourgeoisie audience in attendance moment. If one this is underused, it’s the mystery of Mrs Grant and the ominous cult!

Perhaps it is part of lesser Gialli traits, the sudden stopping in it’s tracks and tossing a mediocre ending at the audience, as a lot of them suffer from somewhat unsatisfying final solutions. The climax to The Girl in Room 2A isn’t’ altogether satisfying and comes off as something of a quick fix. I’m guessing that the lack of eroticism and sexploitative content – which certainly was an area that Rose had tampered deep into back in the states during the Sixties with scripts for several roughies and his direction of the one with the best name ever The Smut Peddler 1965 - may be sign that Rose was trying to move into a new area, more serious film turf and perhaps starting to sever his ties with the old smut peddling sexploitation world. Whatever the case, his plans seemed to have failed, and he unfortunately never made another film after The Girl in Room 2A.

The majority of the score is brilliantly haunting ambient jazzy stuff by Berto Pisano - mostly known for his scores to Andrea Bianchi’s Nude per l’assasino (Strip Nude for Your Killer) 1975, Le notti del terrore (Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) 1981, and Mario Landi’s Giallo a Venezia 1979. But at the same time it takes on some preposterous proportions during the last act and does more damage than help build towards the climax. I don’t know what the through was at the time, but it almost becomes farcical with a cheesy adventure matinee quality. Needless to say it sounds pretty daft in the context of saving young naked women from a red masked person thrashing at them with a cat o’nine tails.

Re-built using part of English and Italian prints to bring the most complete version of The Girl in Room 2A, Mondo Macabro present the film in the finest shape it’s ever been available in to date, uncut, uncensored and unbound! It may not be the top of the crop, but it sure is an delightful little piece that easily makes for some easy watching and the Red hooded sadist is one of those characters you really cant get enough of and cherish every moment of that scarlet insanity.

Panic

Panic
Original title/Aka: Bakterion
Directed by: Tonino Ricci
Italy/Spain, 1982
Horror, 90min

One of my oldest mates here in Stockholm gave me an advanced VCR player some six-seven years back, when he cleared out his warehouse of stuff he’d had in storage since the video racket died out some ten – fifteen years before that. A few weeks ago he found a big cardboard box of old Japanese video tape originals amongst his junk, and invited me to come look at the newly discovered treasure, which I obviously did. I borrowed a bunch of stuff I haven’t seen in ages, or missed the first time around, and again I find myself reflecting other the fact that these old horror flicks, despite how great they look re-mastered, in HD, great clean crisp sound, never really looked better and more enchanting than they did on shoddy video with blurry colours, buzzy sound and grainy images. I’m all for re-mastered re-issues filled to the brim with new interviews and nostalgic retrospect’s, but I can still feel that addiction to VHS like there’ never been S-Video, Laserdisc, VCD, DVD or Blu-ray. It’s an unexplainable kind of magic.

Through a freak accident at a chemical lab, Professor Adams [Roberto Ricci - son of director Tonini] becomes a contagious bloodthirsty monster. Adams colleague and assistant, Jane [Janet Ågren] and Captain Kirk [David Warbeck] are assigned to find out what happened to the professor – as it all starts out as a mystery venture, only the audience know of the monster. But pretty soon the monster is slaying young lovers, roaming the underground sewer system of Newton and spreading panic along his way.

Wasting no time at all, the movie opens with a suggestive shot of some very familiar footage of a place that could be none other than eighties UK. The suggestive footage presents the viewer with an awe of pending threat. Moments later following some shots of Janet Ågren posing with the science props and concluding that there experiment is going wrong, the lab rats are becoming insane and then the genesis of the movies antagonist – Professor Adams - is presented, well at least his boiling, melting blistering face is. The world they live in is established, the monster is presented, the table is set, now let’s rock.

An early attack is used to show the fury and destruction in the monsters wake, when two young lovers get it on inside a small car and get interrupted mid coitus as a disfigured being yanks the bloke out of the car, smashing him into the bonnet before chasing the semi nude chick into a warehouse corner and gutting her. Even the cops are disgusted with the remains when they find her tattered body later on.

If you want to see totally out-dated computer screens, spontaneous nudity punished by violent death, panic in the streets of England – well we never really see it, but they talk about it a lot - and David Warbeck magnificently sneering his way towards yet another pay check, then you will want to check Panic out.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you about a delicate picante minor subplot concerning a perhaps a tad too friendly and sleazy priest [Eugenio Benito] who initially awards the children of the quire with sweets and later is seen walking at night with a flock of them… hiding themselves from the monster they take to locking themselves in the Church… I love the subtle paradox of children hiding from one horror with a one possibly even larger than the monster. Also, you can’t go wrong using children in threatening situations, as it’s one of the most effective tricks in the world. Amusingly I hold a theory that the Spanish genre writers and directors are the filmmakers who predominately use children as a driving force, an emotional tool and a dramatic instrument in their movies. Almost every Spanish flick these past years concerns orphanages, unfortunate children, kiddie ghosts or something that poses threats to children in one way or another – just look at the movies of the Spanish new wave these past years and you’ll see what I’m talking about. So it’s entertaining to see that screenwriters Víctor Andrés Catena and Jaime Comas Gil where aware of that whilst penning this little oddity way back in the day.

Overall this movie get’s somewhat slayed in reviews, but I can only take this as being critique delivered by people who don’t really appreciate the fine art of European exploitation flicks shot on minuscule budget. Panic does have a pretty decent drive forth throughout, split up between three sub plots. The detective plot of Ågren and Warbeck searching for Adams, the horror plot of the Monster on the prowl and the political subplot of Sir Charles (i.e. Government) setting Plan Q in action – A plan that concerns the total destruction of the village of Newton. Several subplots come together rather early on, as we move into act two where Warbeck questions Sir Charles decision of setting Plan Q in action, is ordered to eliminate the contagion and also told that he’s allowed to use his gun. Warbeck never lets his audience down and once the threat is revealed, this movie get’s going. Exposition is over, now let the fun begin. Yeah so it may not be completely logic why the monster kills, or for what reason, certain questions are never answered and the script is kind of all over the place. But at the same time, I’m here for some cheap thrills, a non-intellectual stimuli and a good time with some cheap European trash cinema. Panic delivers by the bucket full up to the rather bland climax. Oh, the monster, Ågren and Warbeck arcs do culminate, but there’s more to follow that…

The grisly effects and fleshy monster makeup by Rino Carboni and Cataldo Galliano do what they are supposed to – for the time effective and no lesser that other effects at the time. The movie keeps Dr. Adams off screen for as long as possible as to build to that inevitable last minute reveal. See, it's not all wrong, there's a lot of stuff working in favor of Panic. Cinematographer Giovanni Bergamini – who also shot Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox 1981 and several movies for Enzo G Castellari, Quel maledetto treno blindato (The Inglorious Bastards) 1978, amongst them, sets and composes shots in a way that never really sands out. Although take note of the way Fulci regular Vincenzo Tomassi edits the first gore sequences, it’s fascinating, but unfortunately never repeated again in the movie. This is unfortunately as this is a splendid way of getting the most out of a tension reliever! Finally one should say something of Marcello Giombini’s score, as it is pretty neat and get’s the job done, at times it’s catchy, works with the action on screen and does add to the eighties feel of the movie.

According to rumour – or video folklore if you like – the movie was actually shot in 1976 under the name Bakterion, but was deemed so terrible by the producers – kind of unjust if you ask me as there’s certainly worse shite been released that Panic – that it was shelved until the early eighties when hard core gore movies where in demand. Sounds bogus, but an interesting story as there’s a small chance the movie could have been innovative more than a knock off of a knock off, as the movie ends with a somewhat time typical “pending doom prophecy” text-plate to simmer in the audiences minds as they walk away from the movie, much like the ones seen in Bruno Mattei’s Virus (Hell of the Living Dead) 1980, Andrea Bianchi’s Le notti del terrore (Burial Ground : Nights of Terror) 1981 and Umberto Lenzi’s Incubo sulla città contaminate (Nightmare City) 1981 to name a few.

A fun note is that Production designer on the flick, Javier Fernández would later go on to be a highly acclaimed art director and receive Goya nominations for several of the movies he worked on during the mid-late nineties… such as Almodóvar's Kika 1994.

Director, Tonino Ricci – who worked second unit on movies for Mario Bava and both of Lucio Fulci’s White Fang flicks - had a pretty decent run going at the time, under the pseudonym Anthony Richmond, and churned out a fistful of entertaining low budget lookalikes of other successful genre flicks at the time. I can’t really say why this one still is something of a lost movie. It certainly doesn’t move slower than others still being hailed as epic works. The grand formula of Panic is Boy and girl get into some heavy petting, Monster turns up and slays them whilst Warbeck and Åberg look for Professor Adams… who we all know is the monster killing the horny kids and naked chicks. There’s a threat established early on that the small English village is going to be nuked and you don’t really need much more that that to keep a movie alive now do you?

Zombie Holocaust

Zombie Holocaust.

Original Title: Zombi Holocaust

Directed by: Marino Girolami

Italy, 1980

Horror/Cannibals/Zombies

Distributed by: NjutaFilms/AWE

One of my very first orders from that old institution CineCity in Holland, René’s treasure-trove of video nasties back in the early nineties, was Frank Martin’s Zombie Holocaust on the old Video For Pleasure VHS release. Looking at the cover of today’s DVD and Blu-ray art, I can still feel the same giddiness every time I sit down to watch this film that I felt when I opened the parcel from Holland after waiting two, three weeks for a video tape to find it’s way into my post-box.

Just like some friends hold Andrea Bianchi’s Le notti del terrore (The Nights of Terror) 1981, or Umberto Lenzi’s Incobu sulla città contaminata (Nightmare City) 1980 as the ultimate totems of depravity and surreal zombie horror, for me it’s Marino Giriolami’s Zombie Holocaust.

A quick fix for a movie you should know by heart: Someone is stealing body parts of from a morgue. Lori Ridgeway [Alexandra Delli Colli – later to star in a most memorable and truly disturbing moment in Lucio Fulci’s Lo squartore di New York (The New York Ripper) 1982] isn’t only a doctor at the hospital where the human thefts have been taking place, she’s also holds a doctorate in anthropology, which leads to her joining forces with Dr. Peter Chandler [Ian McCulloch], quirky journalist Susan Kelly [Sherry Buchanan – later to pick up Caroline Munroe’s cape as Stella Star in Bitto Albertini’s knock-off/sequel to Luigi Cozzi’s Star Crash 1978; Giochi erotici nella 3a galassia (Escape from Galaxy 3) 1981], and George Harper [Peter O’Neal, who if he’d been on StarTrek would have been wearing a read jumper as the took off for the jungle] to investigate the island where the cannibalistic assailants are supposedly coming from. Dispatched by the Department of Health they head for the Moluccas Island to meet up with Dr. Obrero [Donald O’Brian], and pretty soon they are attacked by the blood thirsty cannibals that hide in the green jungle hell… but the cannibals are the least dangerous things in that jungle as they notice when slow decomposing corpses start to shuffle out of the jungle…

Being something of an intoxicated mix of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie) 1979 and Sergio Martino’s La montagna del dio cannibal (Mountain of the Cannibal God) 1978 – and lifting more than one beat, sub-plot and storyline from those two, the movie also owes a lot to Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali (Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals) 1977, and this due to the connection that Zombie Holocaust screenwriter Romano Scandarito also wrote Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals on which he worked with Fabrizio DeAngelis.

Producer Fabrizio De Angelis who worked his way up from being a mail man to one of the most important producers as far as Italian genre classics are concerned, not only came up with the story for this one, he also worked on Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals. Wanting to keep on running with the success of Fulci's Zombie, which he produced too, De Angelis, together with Scandarito came up with Zombie Holocaust – which would later be recut, re-edited and re-issued by Aquarius Releasing under the name Dr. Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviate) in the USA a few years later, with extra footage from a never complete movie shot by Roy Frumkes (Street Trash 1987). Anyone who’s been anywhere near Chas Bauln’s Deep Red books will have read about the movie as Dr. Butcher M.D. but the movie is undoubtedly at it’s best in it’s original shape, with the original score… but I’ll get back to that later.

Despite all the crap you hear or read about this movie, because this is one of those movies people crap all over, it is definitely not a movie for everyone but more a required taste, Zombie Holocaust does go about it’s storytelling in a correct way.

It does set up the premise, it does gives a reasonably logic reason for heading off to the island, and if you want to be really picky, then I’d go as far as saying that the whole first act is what scholars and storytelling guru’s refer to as “the inciting incident” Without Toran [Joseph P. Persaud] stealing body parts from the city morgue, he would never have tossed himself out of that hospital window plummeting to his death on the car park asphalt, Lori would never have seen his Kito tribal tattoo, she’d never have had to tell the story of her childhood on the Moluccas island, then there would never have been any mystery to uncover, and definitely nothing that would motivate Lori and Dr Chandler taking a trip to Dr. Oberon’s makeshift jungle laboratory. Zombie Holocaust even does a damned fine job of keeping the audience in on the plot. And don’t you just love dialogue along the lines “Patient screamed disturbed me, Performed removal of vocal cords… Will now administer a second injection to maintain patients conciseness…" Sadistic dialogue not even the makers of the so-called torture porn flicks could have come up with.

Trashy, sweaty and filled with fascinating gore sequences thanks to Maestro’s Maurizio Trani and Rosario Prestopino, this movie can not be ignored, nor ridiculed any longer, as it takes the two most violent genres and mashes them together in a fantastic cocktail of death unlike anything else. Zombie Holocaust is a classic piece of gritty, sleazy, exploitative low budget filmmaking that simply kicks ass.

As the movie goes into the last act, the most is made of the combined subgenres. Lori, now white goddess of the cannibals - told you it ripped off Mountain of the Cannibal God too, and that full body rock tableau that she fits perfectly also looks just like the one Ursula Andress slipped into in that movie – Anyway after an almost obligatory disrobing and initiation ritual segment - complete with remarkable rush of insight - Lori conjures up her loin clothed cannibals to take on the zombie army of Dr. Oberon. Now how the fuck can you not enjoy a movie like that?

You can’t talk about Zombie Holocaust without talking about the cast… It would be easy to imagine McCulloch flying on autopilot at this stage but being the bold Scotsman that he is, he just digs in and get’s cracking, blissfully unaware of just how many of those cheap and cheerful Italian flicks he’d go on to star in… and what a star he became! Alexandra Delli Colli, wife of acclaimed cinematographer Tonio Delli Colli never really made much of an impression on me as a leading lady, but she get’s the job done and never has a daring escape crosscut with a nude initiation been more illustrious – Although I do find her much more enjoyable in New York Ripper. I’d easily have seen Giriolami flip the roles and have Sherry Buchanan as Lori instead of Delli Colli because if there’s one thing I feel is missing from this movie it’s more Sherry Buchanan. Dakar in the part of jungle guide Molotto, is as McCulloch, more or less reprising his part from Fulci’s Zombi.

The original score that I mentioned before… Well the movie does have a great soundtrack by Nico Fidenco – complete with brooding keyboards, crooning quires and all the trimmings one expects from an Italian horror piece from this time period, but the only problem being that it’s not all that original after all it’s actually Fidenco's score to Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals. See how I mean that Zombie Holocaust owes a lot to that flick? But it works for the flick and I’d never want to hear any other music there, not even Walter E. Sear’s Moogy sounds, which even ended up on the US Version of Fulci’s E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilà (The Beyond) 1981.

Finally I want to tell you about my favourite moment in Zombie Holocaust. No it’s not the corpse who blinks his eyes midst autopsy, it’s not the arm which goes flying off the doll after it hits’ the parking lot beneath the hospital, it not when Delli Colli get’s her kit off in the Cannibal cave, it’s not even the fantastic outboard motor to the face of the zombie on the beach scene… my favourite moment is a much more subtle and minor important, but oh so damned cool. After reaching the camp of Dr. Oberro, McCulloch and Delli Colli remorsefully tell him about the deaths of the rest of the team and a saturated atmosphere sets in. Then there’s a cut, cameraman Fausto Zuccoli pans down to the same location, the actors in the same positions and Dr Obrero tells them about a boat they can take to get off the island. Look at what they are holding… They are all enjoying a cold beer! In the midst of the apocalypse, McCulloch and Dakar sip a cold Carlsberg, and when he’s done he just tosses that metal can into the jungle! Fuck danger, Fuck jungle terrors, Fuck recycling. That’s on of my favourite moments, and if nothing else a great reason for you to go and watch the movie again – or enjoy it for the first time - right now.

Image:

Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0. English Dialogue, with optional Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish subtitles.

Extras:

Original US and German Trailer, Trailers for other Njuta/AWE releases, Stills Gallery, Filmographies and a great short documentary/interview with Rosario Prestopino. A deleted scene, which I believe to be erroneously removed from the movie at some point in time when it started to resurface on DVD, because that mind-bending scene in an obvious murky autumn forest instead of the vibrant sweaty jungle used to be in the movie. It was in my Video For Pleasure video, and I'd like a dvd or Blu-ray where it was back in place again at some point in time.

Burial Ground : The Nights of Terror +/- 4 Seconds

This just in...

There's been a few days of turbulence in the inner circle. Turbulence concerning internet forum rumours that claim all current releases of Andrea Bianchi's seminal sleaze-zombie epic BURIAL GROUND: The Nights of Terror are missing a vital four seconds of gore. There's even a given play time for exact where the extra seconds of gore are to be found [40min, 58sec]. Taking variations in NTSC and PAL runtimes several sources have been checked, notes have been taken, discussions have ben had and comparisons have been made. Both amongst friends and my own personal research on the several versions I own of the movie on DVD - Keep in mind it's the DVD's that are being accused of lacking four seconds of gore.

It's fair to say that the US Media Blasters/Shriek Show, Scandinavian Njuta Films/Another World Entertainment and Dutch Japan Shock all use the same master elements. Despite a varied selection of framing, contrast and brightness, they all have damage in the same area in certain scenes.

I'm quite convinced that they all originate from the same master source. No hard evidence except comparing scenes, damage and watching movies for 40 years.

Which leads us to the rumoured, real uncut, Japanese TCC Video that has the now infamous four seconds of gore... for that is what is claimed by certain characters on movie forums. Four seconds of gore, supposedly a head crush.

Let me set this up for you: 39:00 (minutes into the movie) James [Simone Mattoli - our moustachioed friend] walks down a corridor only to find the corpse of the maid [Anna Valente] hanging out through the window. At 39:30 he's right up close to her and gags as he pulls back in shock. 40:00 after seeing the zombies below, he tosses her body out the window and she hangs from the nail hammered though her hand earlier like a human piñata as the undead pull at her legs. 40:30 they pull her loose and start to chomp into the dead maid. 40:47 James starts to pull back from the terror and closes the shutters. He let's the horror sink in and the movie cuts to an extreme closeup of the maids guts being torn out. Now somewhere in that mere two minutes of movie mayhem, [40min, 58sec] the missing four seconds are found on the Japanese VHS... oh did I mention that the four seconds are either essential gore or a head crush?

Take a look at the screen grabs below and see the real difference in the three DVD releases and the Japanese VHS.

I rest my case, the rumour is busted. There was no gore, no head crush, no secret moment that changes the entire viewing experience, but merely a tender moment where actor Simone Mattoli having a delicate moment, reacting to the atrocities he's witnessed. Four seconds of leaning back on the shutters and being a complete wimpy horror movie character.

Thanks to Jack J for taking the time to video his UNCUT Japanese vhs and posting it on the old You Tube.

The Nights of Terror

The Nights of Terror
Aka: Burial Ground
Aka: Zombie 3
Original Title: Le notti del terrore
Directed by: Andrea Bianchi
Italy, 1981
Horror / Zombies, 82min
Distributed by: Japan Shock

There’s something very potent with certain bad movies. Movies that are so bad that they in some screwed up way become good. Bad movies that you know are bad, but can’t really make yourself discard it as a real bad movie. Because certain bad movies are so bad that they become good because we all know them and keep on going back to them. They live on because of their flaws, they live on because of their cult status, and they live on because what may seem as a bad movie could very well be a good movie. They live on just like the pasty zombies in The Nights of Terror…

Andrea Bianchi’s The Nights of Terror is definitely one of the classic so bad that it’s good movies. It’s cheap, it’s cheesy, it’s violent, and it’s sleazy. It’s a gem simply because it’s one of the cultural low marks of Italian Genre cinema – and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s one of those movies that people who don’t know, or get, genre cinema will say – “That was the worst film I have ever seen, it’s shit!” Whilst those initiated and with a deeper understanding and tolerance for genre cinema will say, “That was the worst film I have ever seen, it’s brilliant! “

Like so many of his colleagues in the Italian genre sphere, Andrea Bianchi also came from a background in journalism and television production. Always holding a keen eye for the sexier approach to his work he debuted with Diabólica malicia (Night Child) 1972 for which Bianchi handled the riskier euro version that saw a fully naked Britt Ekland in some very suggestive scenes with a barely thirteen-year-old Mark Lester. Bianchi continued to churn out sexploitation movies and continuously used traits that stayed sleazy with a couple of interesting titles along the way. Among the highlights you find the sleazy Giallo Nude per l’assassino (Strip Nude for Your Killer) 1975 - a classic Giallo, using classic Gialli narrative, as Edwige Fenech portrays one of the nude photo models threatened by a gloved, motorcycle helmeted, machete wielding killer, then there’s Malabimba 1979 - a pretty cheesy, but sleazy, semi Exorcist/Nunsplotiation rip off that sees Mariangela Giordano as a nun, and the hilarious stinker Commando Mengele 1987 - where sleazy French production company Eurociné bagged both Bianchi and Jess Franco in the same movie and sported some fantastic state of the art computers… and there’s obviously the one that Bianchi will forever be remembered for – the infamous The Nights of Terror.

Do you really need a quick fix for this one? I’m guessing that you have seen it, because if you haven’t, then you really have no time to waste sitting here reading bollocks online, you should be watching or re-watching the fabulous The Nights of Terror….

After a hefty Santa bearded archaeologist, Professor Ayres [Raimondo Barbieri] discovers something so gobsmacking that he has to keep it secret by concealing it though some really crap dialogue, but he can’t keep his fingers out of the cookie jar and starts banging away like a raving maniac on the walls of the cave he's found with his pickaxe. And obviously zombies emerge from the now open tomb, and ignoring his “No, no, stand back… I’m your friend!” they tear his fucking throat out and devour his flesh. - How’s that for an initial attack!

Following a pretty funky title sequence that shows the cast arriving at the mansion where the shit is about to hit the fan, the obvious counterpart to death is set in motion – sex. Already as the aristocratic bunch park their cars and ask the maid and butler why they didn’t answer the gate to let them in it’s insinuated that they where busy having it off on the second floor. Moments later the various couples start to get down to their sleazy business, Leslie [Antonella Antinori] gives James [Simone Mattioli] a little burlesque dance leading up to some great seedy dialogue - Didn’t you like my little show? You looked just like a little whore… but I like that look on you! Evelyn [Mariangela Giordano here as Maria Angela Giordano] checks in on her hideous son Michael [Peter Bark] to assure herself that he’s asleep before some nocturnal activities, but as soon as she’s on top of George [Roberto Caporali] the weird looking lad walks in on them interrupting their moment of pleasure and also delivering the first of several mulligan’s as the audience suspects the shadows cast through the hallways will be the zombies from the opening… Finally the last couple, Mark [Gianluigi Chrizzi] and Janet [Karin Well] where she predicts that something terrible will happen… Mark assures her that she’s got nothing to fear as she’s safe with him… which ironically proves to be sort of true as she eventually will be the last victim before the movie comes to it’s nihilistic climax.

The bourgeoisie couples ponder the grounds of the mansion and obviously end up in smutty snog sessions here and there as the Etruscan zombies finally break out of the earth and start causing mayhem amongst the group. It’s also at this point that the Oedipal traits that can be found in many of Bianchi and screenwriter Piero Regnoli’s movies are put into play – well actually it’s started when Michael interrupts his mothers shag session with George earlier, but here it becomes painfully obvious as Michael snatches his mom’s hand away from George and kisses it jealously… George walks to the background of cinematographer Gianfranco Maioletti’s composition and very visually and emotionally set aside. A mere minute later George will be dead and once again the gory glory of death is put in harsh contrast to the lovemaking as the couples have it off on the mansion grounds.

This is pretty much how Andrea Bianchi’s The Nights of Terror plays out, smutty groping of horny hands set against smutty groping of dead hands. Life is not a precious thing in this movie and by the end of the flick it’s profoundly obviously that death is always just around the corner.

There’s no questioning that The Nights of Terror is a blatant attempt at cashing in on the surprise success of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie) 1979. It even has special effects by the one and only Gino De Rossi, and even goes as far as copying the iconic maggot infested zombie rising from the dirt gimmick and the outrageous splinter versus eye scene frame by frame, well it tries to at least. Although it should also be noted that Rosario Prestopino who worked as special makeup effects artist on the movie previously had worked on Fulci’s Zombie, and Paura nela città dei morti viventi (The Gates of Hell) 1980, along side with De Rossi, so the grotesque factor of the movie shouldn't all be credited to De Rossi alone, but also to Prestopino too. Later Prestopino would go on to work on many other chunky movies that certainly pack a punch with their special effects like Fulci’s Lo squartatore di New York (The New York Ripper) 1982, Lamberto Bava’s Dèmoni movies 1985-1986, Dario Argento’s Opera 1987 and Michele Soavi’s La Setta (The Sect) 1991 which also featured Mariangela Giordano in a leading role. But back to The Nights of Terror – Yeah the zombies are pasty, the dialogue is cheesy, the effects aren’t very special and at times the movie feels like a perverted doped up episode of Scooby Doo as the cast evade the zombies by running from one location to another through out the entire movie. But that doesn’t really matter, because the movie undoubtedly has some fantastic moments during it’s 82 minute run. But with some great smutty moments, burning zombie and several fantastic moments where the zombies get really inventive and use a bunch of garden tools to get to their victims, the movie is a jolly kick in the balls and definitely a very personal favourite for many reasons.

But The Nights of Terror is also a fantastic testament to how inventive low budget directors took the ever-popular apocalyptic nihilism of the zombie genre and blended it in with their own universe - and that’s exactly what appeals to me with this movie. Much like Joe D’Amato used every genre possible to set his sexploitation vehicles in, Bianchi, Regnoli and producer Gabriele Crisanti also stayed safe in the sphere of that genre that they had become accustomed to since they first worked together - be it Quelli che contano (Cry of a Prostitute) 1974 Bianchi and Regnoli, Le impiegate stradali – Batton Story (The Used Road) 1976 Regnoli and Crisanti, or Cara dolce nipote (Dear Sweet Niece) 1977 which saw all three of them getting together for the first time. And it’s this path that they would comfortably stick to on the more than a half dozen movies that they would make together – the trail of the gritty trashy sleaze movie. You name it and they brought their bag of depraved misogyny, butt naked women, grotesque violence and cheap sleaziness that we associate with the movies of Bianchi - and if you know what movies Regnoli wrote scripts for, you will now exactly what I mean. The Nights of Terror is a hilariously entertaining piece of horror with a big dollop of sleazy kinkiness to go around. If you want blood – you got it, if you want pasty chunky faced zombies – you got it, if you want naked Italian actors and actresses – you got it, if you want a fantastic droney pop score by Berto Pisano – you got it. Although that Pisano score is more or less lifted off several other movies that producer Gabriele Crisanti produced previously… like Mario Landi’s Giallo a Venezia (Giallo in Venice) 1979, which like many of Crisanti’s movies featured the feisty Mariangela Giordano.

In the aftermath of the Video Recordings Act 1984 – the law struck down by the British government in response to the videonasties panic of a few years earlier - Bianchi’s The Nights of Terror was a difficult movie to see in the UK, especially as it had just over ten minutes chopped out by the distributors and then another three by the BBFC before it was released in its just over an hour running time. But not living in the UK at the time, it really shouldn’t matter at all what the British censors do…. although nothing travels faster than word of mouth, and I’m certain that it’s acts like that - a butchering far more serious than anything a filmmaker could have put in their movie – that make up part of these “good/bad movie legends”, after all a movie that was so severe that it had to have almost twelve minutes taken out must be something to see, mustn’t it. And for every person who actually saw the movie in some uncut form – either imported from Holland, Greek Ex-rental or on some third generation dupe, the movies reputation grew. And you know exactly what we heard, there are loads of zombies, guts galore and there’s this really creepy kid that bites his mom’s tits off.

And what about that phenomenal cast - what a great bonus they are for this movie! The mysterious and fascinating Mariangela Giordano… She holds an aura that is reminiscent of so many other great Italian genre piece leading ladies, but never really has the same varnish that they did. There’s something of a chipped doll about her that appeals to me, and at the same time she must be applauded for still accepting key parts in movies that indeed where very misogynistic and violent. If you know her filmography, she’s certainly one of the most violated Italian actresses ever. And it’s fascinating that she, no matter what age she was, still continued to take parts that required her to get her kit off. There are not too many actresses who at the fine age of fifty-nine would strip down for the cameras, like she did for Jess Franco in Killer Barbys 1996. She’s an impressive leading lady that brings a lot to this movie, especially in that freaky incestuous relationship she holds to her son in the film. You have to admit that no matter how much the perversity of their relationship is insinuated, it is a pretty tender moment and a most ironic reunion of mother and child before he takes that mouthful out of her breast. And that chest chomp may be something of a fetish for Piero Regnoli, as he also wrote a similar tit-chomping scene for Umberto Lenzi’s Incubo sulla città contaminata (Nightmare City) 1980.

Not to forget HIM, as if you ever could, Michael, Evelyn’s son played by non other than the remarkable Peter Bark, who only starred in enough movies to count on one hand, but still made an everlasting impression insanely cast as a child when he actually was twenty-six years old. Why Bianchi didn’t go with any of the more common child actors like Giovanni Frezza or one that at least looked like a child. But instead he chose a too old, oversized midget with the most terrifying hair ever… But my goodness what a scene it is, and what an impact it has made. It’s one of the most classic moments of this movie and taking the part as Michael it also gave Bark his only acting credit and secured him a spot in Italian genre history. But there's no space for debate at all, Mariangela Giordano and Peter Bark own this movie, without them it would simply be yet another sloppy Italian zombie flick, but with those two, theres a magic vibe to the piece.

So for once and for all – Yes, Andrea Bianchi’s The Nights of Terror is the brilliantly trashy stuff that legends are made of and definitely one of the best bad movies ever to crawl out of the Italian underbelly!

Image:

Widescreen 1. 85:1

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English Dialogue, optional Dutch subtitles.

Extras:

Original trailer, slideshow. Booklet.