My favorite director of all time is Mario Bava. As such, I have a guilty admiration for the movies of his less-talented son, Lamberto. Lamberto has a pretty leaden eye when it comes to film-making, and really he has only a couple of quality films on his resume.
The Torturer is his attempt to make a torture-horror type movie, and he does so in a pretty straightforward fashion. An insane villain tricks women into coming to his deserted studio for "acting tryouts" and then he gets them to climb inside scary boxes and such, and then he tortures them to death.
The torture is a little gory, but it's actually less impressive than the kind of stuff we used to see in the 60s, with films such as the Coffin Joe series. The cheesecake isn't bad (if there's one thing Italian films do right, it's having attractive women), but you don't really see anything X-rated. And not enough of the R-rated, if you're a fan.
The plot does manage to thicken a little in the last 20 minutes of the film, and some interesting action takes place. Bava, presumably to save money, set most of the film in one single set which looks suspiciously like a normal movie studio. Bava almost always makes one horrible misstep somewhere in each of his movies. In this one, it is the conceit that the demented killer stays hidden from view for most of the movie - he's just a voice over a speaker. And there is no reason for this - his identity is not a secret - he's just a madman. But it removes any chance for the characters to interact.
The Italian cinema has decayed mightily since its glory days in the 1970s. I respect Bava for trying to bring it back even with this no-budget exploitation trash. So for that reason, if no other, I recommend the movie.
The Torturer is his attempt to make a torture-horror type movie, and he does so in a pretty straightforward fashion. An insane villain tricks women into coming to his deserted studio for "acting tryouts" and then he gets them to climb inside scary boxes and such, and then he tortures them to death.
The torture is a little gory, but it's actually less impressive than the kind of stuff we used to see in the 60s, with films such as the Coffin Joe series. The cheesecake isn't bad (if there's one thing Italian films do right, it's having attractive women), but you don't really see anything X-rated. And not enough of the R-rated, if you're a fan.
The plot does manage to thicken a little in the last 20 minutes of the film, and some interesting action takes place. Bava, presumably to save money, set most of the film in one single set which looks suspiciously like a normal movie studio. Bava almost always makes one horrible misstep somewhere in each of his movies. In this one, it is the conceit that the demented killer stays hidden from view for most of the movie - he's just a voice over a speaker. And there is no reason for this - his identity is not a secret - he's just a madman. But it removes any chance for the characters to interact.
The Italian cinema has decayed mightily since its glory days in the 1970s. I respect Bava for trying to bring it back even with this no-budget exploitation trash. So for that reason, if no other, I recommend the movie.