User Reviews

When a predominantly female rock band are lambasted by their producer for failing to write a decent tune, their male drummer purchases an unpublished score written by violinist Paganini, who was rumoured to have murdered his wife and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune.

The band use the music as the basis for their newest song, and decide to shoot the accompanying video in the very house in which Paganini sealed his Satanic deal. This proves to be a bad idea when they discover that evil forces are still at work in the old building, where time and space have their own rules and a mysterious masked murderer lurks, armed with deadly violin equipped with a spring-loaded blade.

"What a strange light," mentions one character to her friends as they investigate the spooky house at the centre of the Paganini Horror. "It's more than strange", comes the reply, "it's weird." This dreadful exchange of dialogue (one of many) is fairly representative of this late-80s Italian horror as a whole: it makes no sense whatsoever—not surprising since it was written and directed by Luigi Cozzi, the man who gave us dumb, Z-grade, trash sci-fi flicks Hercules and Starcrash, and the very daft Alien rip-off Contamination.

Cozzi seems to be aiming at delivering a Dario Argento-style supernatural horror in the vein of Suspiria or Inferno, but being a total hack, only manages to emulate Argento's garish lighting with any degree of success. The plot is so muddled that even Argento's most outrageous work seems logical in comparison (believe it or not, one character is inexplicably killed by wood fungus!), the direction is basic at best, and the score is a diabolical mix of 80s pop-rock and classical music.

Not one of the cast puts in a credible performance, with particularly bad acting from Pietro Genuardi as the band's video director Mark Singer, who is supposedly a top horror film maker, but who works with a single shoulder mounted camera, no crew and absolutely no sign of a script or storyboard; even Argento's muse Daria Nicolodi and Donald Pleasance are dreadful, with Nicolodi overacting wildly and Pleasance looking rather embarrassed to be involved.

Don't go expecting much in the way of decent gore either: most of the deaths are pretty bloodless, and even the most gruesome moment—a woman's head crushed by an invisible wall—will have you laughing at the cheap effect, achieved by pressing the actress's face against a sheet of glass whilst running fake blood over her head.

If it hadn't been for the fact that a couple of the women are very easy on the eye and happily squeeze into body-hugging outfits, I probably would have fallen asleep way before Cozzi calls it a day and wraps the film up with a simply awful surprise ending.

Luigi Cozzi, welcome back to B & S About Movies! We're so happy to have you back and so pleased that you've gifted us with movies like Hercules and Starcrash. I'm so pleased with the magic that you've brought us today, a near last gasp of Italian horror at the tail end of the 80's.

At La Casa di Sol, an ancient Venezian home of various composers, a young violinist (Cozzi's daughter Giada) practices a Paganini song before she then decides to electrocute her mother by throwing a hairdryer into the bathtub. We haven't even started the movie yet and it's already deranged!

A female rock band is told by their manager that they should find a new song. The drummer travels to a secluded location to meet Mr. Pickett (Donald Pleasence!) to buy an unpublished score by Paganini called "Paganini Horror." The manager, the drummer and lead singer Kate (Jasmine Maimone, Nancy from Demons) agree to record the song and head to La Casa di Sol to make a music video with horror director Mark Singer (Pietro Genuardi, Cemetery Man).

So who owns La Casa? Sylvia (Daria Nicolodi, who beyond writing and appearing in this, wrote Suspiria), who is the young girl from the beginning all grown up.

Oh man, this movie. From the fungus found on the logs used to make Stradivarius violins killing people to invisible walls wiping out most of the audience, this movie is bonkers in the best of ways. There's also Paganini himself, stabbing people and sealing them up in giant bass cases before setting them on fire, before daylight streams through the window and turns him into ash in the shape of a treble clef.

In the original cut, which was eight minutes longer with scenes of planets, galaxies and parallel dimensions that were supposed to give the movie a stronger science fiction touch, as well as a scene in which Pleasence's character put on Paganini's mask and clothes. Cozzi cut these scenes as producer Fabrizio De Angelis wanted a simpler horror movie.

The rules of why people are trapped in the house and whether or not its Hell are never really explained, but this is Italian cinema. There's going to be plenty of bright red blood, lots of screaming, some 1980's looking music video scenes and a masked Pleasence stabbing people. It's a funhouse ride that is well worth taking.

Tacky, colorful, confusing, mildly-entertaining drivel seems to be the European answer to the short-lived North American 'heavy metal horror' subgenre; films that typically revolved around Lycra-clad, big-haired rock band members being terrorized by supernatural (usually Satanic) forces. Said subgenre included the titles ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984), HARD ROCK ZOMBIES (1984), MONSTER DOG (1984), TRICK OR TREAT (1986), ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE (1987), SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (1987), BLACK ROSES (1988), HARD ROCK NIGHTMARE (1989), HEAVY METAL MASSACRE (1989; directed by David De Falco and so obscure it's currently not even listed on IMDb), DEAD GIRLS (1990), SHOCK 'EM DEAD (1990) and probably a few others I'm forgetting. This one, from the director of the usually-well-regarded giallo THE KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN (1975), the silly sci-fi adventure STARCRASH (1979) and the unofficial SUSPIRIA "sequel" THE BLACK CAT (1989) - amongst others - is neither the best nor the worst of the lot, though it's far from what most would consider good.

A nearly all-female rock band headed by singer/songstress Kate (Jasmine Maimone) has hit a creative slump, as evidenced by their atrocious "You Give Love a Bad Name" opening rip-off number. To help matters, drummer Daniel (Pascal Persiano) purchases an unreleased composition written by famous Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini from Mr. Pickett (a diabolically dubbed and goofy acting Donald Pleasance). Upon hearing the track and learning of its origins, the band's bitchy, money-hungry producer Lavinia (Maria Cristina Mastrangeli) decides to hire famous horror film director Mark Singer (Pietro Genuardi) to shoot a horror-themed music video in Paganini's former home; the same place where the violinist reputedly sold his soul to Satan to become famous. It isn't long before most of the cast - which includes Daria Nicolodi as the current owner of Paganini's home and sexy guitarists Michel Klippstein and Luana Ravegnini - are facing various supernatural horrors.

For starters, there's a ghostly, echo-voiced, gold masked killer lurking around who uses a gold violin with a retractable blade. There's also an underground tunnel which leads to an alternate dimension (?!), strange shrill noises that incapacitate people and an electric forcefield which surrounds the house (?!) and is able to blow up a car. Some of the death scenes are pretty bizarre. Someone is crushed by an invisible wall; another is mutated by some kind of infectuous tree fungus (!) Oh yeah, and one of the females may be a little girl who toasted her mum in the bathtub with a hair dryer years earlier. The final scene tries to tie all the loose ends together but only succeeds in making things even more confusing than they already were.

There's some mild gore (fx are variable) and no less than three musical numbers, including a pretty funny music video. Everything is drenched in blue, red and green colors because the director is an Argento devotee (and had helped write a couple of Argento's earlier projects).

Amazingly entertaining and completely stupid Italian horror! A pop group purchase a mysterious unpublished Paganini melody from a mysterious old man. Turns out it's the evil melody he wrote to sell his soul to Satan! Or something. Anyway, when the band play their soft-rock-meets-synth-pop masterpiece "Paganini Horror" it's fated that Bad Things will happen!

So along comes Paganini in a cool mask, with a gold switchblade violin and some infernal powers, to mess with the group and their manager because... well, because he feels like it. Or maybe because he really hates '80s Euro pop, which is understandable really.

Then it turns out that the whole rigmarole has nothing to do with the group in a surprise ending which is partly surprising because of how little sense it makes (even for an Italian horror flick of the 80s!).

The amazingly 80s music and costumes are rivalled only by the dialogue and dubbing in terms of entertainment value, so while Paganini Horror might not be the finest of horror films it's certainly among the funnest! OK, so not much happens, really – some running around, some screaming, some killing, all freed from the constraints of logic and storytelling – and it's both well-paced and fine to look at, while some of the gore effects are superb (and the others are, of course, superbly entertaining). The score is better than the band's songs allow the viewer to hope for, too, and the small, rather mismatched cast are somehow perfect for this sublime nonsense.

The male drummer and video director are both completely ineffectual characters, the former played with some panache by Pascal Persiano, the latter portrayed in a flagrantly comedic style by Pietro Genuardi – but this movie's all about the women, and its the female cast who dominate from start to finish. Bonus! Two of the girls in the band are pretty hot (Maria Cristina Mastrangeli and Michele Klippstein), while the other one (Jasmine Maimone as singer/bandleader Kate) overacts with astonishing vigour, and Luana Ravegnini as their manager (less hot than the hot girls, but prettier and a better actor than Ms Maimone) alternates hilariously between being a hard-nosed boss-bitch and screaming along with the rest of the girls.

The aforementioned twist ending is incredible, and made me marvel once more at the talents of the film's two big horror-genre names, top-billed Daria Niccolodi and guest star Donald Pleasance, for delivering such idiotic lines with such bravura seriousness.

Pleasance is so gleefully sinister during his short screen time that his character comes across more charming than chilling (not surprising really!). Niccolodi's acting is as solid as ever, and she's sometimes lost amongst the screaming, overacting girls but it works because it's her character who delivers a lot of the important lines, and she's utterly pivotal to the greatness of the film's finalé.

For all the wrong reasons, this is a classic of Italian horror!

This 1988 horror film features a rock band planning to make a horror style music video with a classical touch. They get an unpublished score sheet written by deceased composer, Paganini and the band is able to shoot their video in his old, ancestral home in which he haunts them. This is a cheesy flick which starts ok, but goes downhill after. Some of the dubbing is annoying, but there's a gothic horror element similar to "Phantom of the Opera" which is good and I like the score. It also has a bit of a Dario Argento feel and his ex-wife, Daria Nicolodi appears and the late, great Donald Pleasence who was in "Phenomena" aka "Creepers." If you like horror, give this a try.

When the list of famous Italian directors is made one name will most likely not be found there. Luigi Cozzi aka Lewis Coates has only made 20 films as a director and for my money none of them amount to much. Even his most famous film STARCRASH left much to be desired and was fun more for its outlandishness than anything else. Still he has his fans and many adore his film ALIEN CONTAMINATION. So when I saw this film was being released I was intrigued but not expecting much.

The film opens in the past as a young girl staying at La Casa di Sol, a Venetian house that at one time violinist/composer Paganini had stayed in, for some reason tosses an electric hair dryer into her mother's bath. Fast forward from there to the present.

A female led rock band is in the middle of recording their new album. Unfortunately their manager Lavinia finds their new songs trite and identical to those on their previous LP. As she and the band bicker back and forth, their drummer Daniel goes out of his way to scoop a new song. Meeting a mysterious stranger named Mr. Pickett (Donald Pleasance) he buys a piece called "Paganini Horror". The manager loves it, the band loves it, now to record it and shoot a video.

To do the video Lavinia hires the top new horror film director Marc Singer. Lead singer Kate knows just where they should shoot the film too, La Casa di Sol where she knows the new owner Sylvia (Daria Nicolodi). They begin shooting and while on a break Kate tells the rest of the band about the legend of the house, home to Paganini who supposedly murdered his bride in the building.

As the shooting progresses things begin to happen. First off the bass player Rita runs into someone wearing a Paganini mask that she assumes is David. Until he stabs her to death with a violin. The band thinks she's run off and continues shooting. And then David is killed by the same masked figure.

The band thinks this is all a big joke being pulled on them until more mysterious things begin to happen. Suddenly they know they're on the run for their lives. When they try to leave the property they find a force field of sorts that won't allow them to leave. Now they must find out why this is happening and do something to deal with it before it's too late.

Rather than being a terrifying horror film it instead seems like a kitschy look at trends that were taking place when it was shot in 1989. The girls all have big hair, too much stylized makeup and perform pop tunes rather than rock and roll. All the accoutrements of the time are on display here. Even the behavior of the director feels more like an image rather than an actual person.

While Severin has taken pains to make this release look as good as it can a 2k scan from the original film negative it can't help the choices that Cozzi makes as a director with far too much smoke in many scenes and soft filters in others. But it isn't just the look that can't save this film.

The acting on display is far too over the top with the exception of the two recognizable names found here, Pleasance and Nicolodi. Both have done far better films and the odds are good that their appearance here was either for money of because of friendships. The rest of the cast do little that would make you seek out other performances by them.

The one thing that does rate well here in the film is the score and pop songs. Both should have provided a solid base for the film but the rest takes down any hope of that. Fortunately both can be enjoyed with this release as Severin is including a CD of the soundtrack with this disc. That alone makes this release worth picking up.

Extras for the film include an interview with Cozzi, an interview with actor Pietro Genuardi who plays Singer, deleted scenes, an alternate ending and the original trailer. Credit has to be given to Severn for releasing this in such great shape. While the movie itself is lacking there are fans of both Cozzi and of any and all Italian horror. By releasing the film they allow it to find a new life and to not be lost in the whirlpool of forgotten films that have disappeared.