After 14 (!) years of hanging around quietly on TV-sets and directing things unknown to the masses, Lamberto Bava finally shows some signs of life again by returning to familiar horror-territory. Yay! Only... it's damn sad to see it's only an unimaginative twitch and a pathetic attempt to ride the successful wave of torture-horror à la SAW and HOSTEL and the recent outbreak of fake-snuff related horror-flicks.
Cinematographically speaking, Lamberto Bava sure tries to do his best with the very low budget this movie had. Seemingly shot on video, the movie shows us examples of original and even captivating framing (like the one shot were you see a dead girl's body laying in the mud on the foreground when Elena Bouryka is pulling electrical wires out of the ground in the background) and Bava also used a lot of contemporary editing-tricks to make it all look a bit more modern and slick. The lighting wasn't bad at all, really, but the few daylight scenes looked awful.
Now as far as the story goes: It's retarded. They might have gotten away with a "plot" like this during the 70's, but having to sit through something like this these days, simply is an insult. The women are all such stupid and dumb characters you just want to hit them in the head with a blunt object yourself and get it over with. They're just too dumb to realize what they are getting themselves into, while any person with at least the braincells of a frog would realize that they should get themselves out of the situation they have gotten themselves mixed up in. I really scratched my head numerous times.
The scriptwriters (including Bava) didn't even try on this one. They tried to disguise this torture-movie as some sort of Nu-Giallo movie, but they failed to insert any kind of red herring and you just know right away who's doing the killing. It can be only one person, really. And then there's this totally pointless and ridiculous sub-plot about 'traumatized mommy' babbling nonsense and a kiddies song with the lyrics "this door stays locked" (or something like that). It doesn't even lead to anything. And what about a hero who saves his girl, then walks by a female victim who's still alive and tied to a cross, simply ignores her, leaves her in pain, walks outside the building, closes the door, holds his girl and says "I'm glad it's all over now"??? I think "OMG" would be slightly appropriate... And what about the previous scene where our hero pulls his girl out of the water after she had drowned like 30 minutes ago... and then after 5 minutes of violin-music she opens her eyes again...??? Come on, please... I rolled my eyes on that one.
I have to admit Elena Bouryka is quite pleasing on the eyes as the leading lady... even for a skinny blonde bimbo, ehrr... I mean: Lady. And she can even act a bit... but only when she does NOT speak and looks scared or is investigating things. Seriously, her high-pitched, squeaky (dubbed, probably...?) voice had me convinced she was born in the wrong era. She should have been an actress back when they were still making silent movies... Well, yeah, I'm being a bit harsh on the lady probably. She's still young and I'd like to hear her talk once with her real voice (preferably with a sexy Italian accent), instead of this dubbed one. The dubbing was quite good in this film, actually. But really, it should be in this day and age.
So were the several gruesome and bloody make-up effects. Good and numerous enough to please any gore-hound or torture-fan. And that brings us to the only point this movie has to make: coming up with as many inventive ways to torture attractive women to death and try to get them all to take their clothes off in front of the camera. And that's all this movie is about. It's pretty sick, yes. It has a lot of beautiful women showing skin, yes. I even liked it for that. But it's a very bad film, children.
Cinematographically speaking, Lamberto Bava sure tries to do his best with the very low budget this movie had. Seemingly shot on video, the movie shows us examples of original and even captivating framing (like the one shot were you see a dead girl's body laying in the mud on the foreground when Elena Bouryka is pulling electrical wires out of the ground in the background) and Bava also used a lot of contemporary editing-tricks to make it all look a bit more modern and slick. The lighting wasn't bad at all, really, but the few daylight scenes looked awful.
Now as far as the story goes: It's retarded. They might have gotten away with a "plot" like this during the 70's, but having to sit through something like this these days, simply is an insult. The women are all such stupid and dumb characters you just want to hit them in the head with a blunt object yourself and get it over with. They're just too dumb to realize what they are getting themselves into, while any person with at least the braincells of a frog would realize that they should get themselves out of the situation they have gotten themselves mixed up in. I really scratched my head numerous times.
The scriptwriters (including Bava) didn't even try on this one. They tried to disguise this torture-movie as some sort of Nu-Giallo movie, but they failed to insert any kind of red herring and you just know right away who's doing the killing. It can be only one person, really. And then there's this totally pointless and ridiculous sub-plot about 'traumatized mommy' babbling nonsense and a kiddies song with the lyrics "this door stays locked" (or something like that). It doesn't even lead to anything. And what about a hero who saves his girl, then walks by a female victim who's still alive and tied to a cross, simply ignores her, leaves her in pain, walks outside the building, closes the door, holds his girl and says "I'm glad it's all over now"??? I think "OMG" would be slightly appropriate... And what about the previous scene where our hero pulls his girl out of the water after she had drowned like 30 minutes ago... and then after 5 minutes of violin-music she opens her eyes again...??? Come on, please... I rolled my eyes on that one.
I have to admit Elena Bouryka is quite pleasing on the eyes as the leading lady... even for a skinny blonde bimbo, ehrr... I mean: Lady. And she can even act a bit... but only when she does NOT speak and looks scared or is investigating things. Seriously, her high-pitched, squeaky (dubbed, probably...?) voice had me convinced she was born in the wrong era. She should have been an actress back when they were still making silent movies... Well, yeah, I'm being a bit harsh on the lady probably. She's still young and I'd like to hear her talk once with her real voice (preferably with a sexy Italian accent), instead of this dubbed one. The dubbing was quite good in this film, actually. But really, it should be in this day and age.
So were the several gruesome and bloody make-up effects. Good and numerous enough to please any gore-hound or torture-fan. And that brings us to the only point this movie has to make: coming up with as many inventive ways to torture attractive women to death and try to get them all to take their clothes off in front of the camera. And that's all this movie is about. It's pretty sick, yes. It has a lot of beautiful women showing skin, yes. I even liked it for that. But it's a very bad film, children.