This is basically another take on the Rosemary's Baby scenario, but done in that inimitably weird Italian style. By this point Michele Soavi is beginning to find his own voice, and we can see him drifting apart from his controlling mentor/producer, Dario Argento. Things get off to a bad start with a ludicrous prologue in which some Satanic bikers slaughter a bunch of hippies. So far so good, except for the gang leader's ridiculous tendency to quote The Rolling Stones, talking about how their music is full of profound knowledge understood only by the chosen few. It's completely stupid, but it was a necessary sacrifice; Soavi and his co-writer (Gianni Romoli) allowed Argento to write the opening scene himself to ensure that he'd leave the rest of the movie alone. This is hilariously acknowledged in the movie itself, when at one point the head of the titular sect (a creepily subdued performance by Herbert Lom) picks up a music magazine in the protagonist's apartment and, with the air of a man who now knows better, reminisces about how deep the Stones' music was considered in the seventies.
Anyway, like Soavi's other films this is brimming with nightmarish imagery (I love the burial shroud that flits in and out of the narrative) and mysterious symbolism, but it hasn't aged quite as well. The cinematography of Raffaele Mertes is serviceable during the film's moodier sections, but most of the time it feels a bit flat. The same can be said of Pino Donaggio's soundtrack, whose unimaginative synthesizer beats and drones were unfortunately endemic in the nineties. Since this is a Soavi film, though, it's still well above average and certainly never boring - he takes a derivative story and spices it up with bizarre images, stylized scenes of violence, a large helping of symbolism (much of it related to fertility), and even a pinch of Lovecraft. The ending is a point of contention for some, but I think it's both gutsy and surprisingly moving. This is perhaps Soavi's least successful horror film, but here we can already see him experimenting with images and ideas that will be perfected in his next project, Dellamorte Dellamore.
Anyway, like Soavi's other films this is brimming with nightmarish imagery (I love the burial shroud that flits in and out of the narrative) and mysterious symbolism, but it hasn't aged quite as well. The cinematography of Raffaele Mertes is serviceable during the film's moodier sections, but most of the time it feels a bit flat. The same can be said of Pino Donaggio's soundtrack, whose unimaginative synthesizer beats and drones were unfortunately endemic in the nineties. Since this is a Soavi film, though, it's still well above average and certainly never boring - he takes a derivative story and spices it up with bizarre images, stylized scenes of violence, a large helping of symbolism (much of it related to fertility), and even a pinch of Lovecraft. The ending is a point of contention for some, but I think it's both gutsy and surprisingly moving. This is perhaps Soavi's least successful horror film, but here we can already see him experimenting with images and ideas that will be perfected in his next project, Dellamorte Dellamore.