User Reviews

I can't recall another film at the moment that begins with so much promise and flushes it all down the toilet in the second half. Despite its shaky beginning, I was actually prepared to give Evil Clutch an 8 during most of the first half. During the extended climax, my score kept sinking lower and lower until I wasn't sure it even deserved a 4.

Tony (Diego Ribon) and Cindy (Coralina Cataldi Tassoni) are lovers or engaged or something like that. They're in Italy, but it seems like maybe Cindy hasn't always lived in Italy, or she just never traveled much, because Tony is taking Cindy all over Italy to see the famous sights. We know this because director Andreas Marfori intercuts sets of "Polaroid snapshots" with the opening titles. These seem to go on forever, with mostly ridiculous but banal dialogue accompanying them. It was bad and long enough that at one point I thought, "Holy cow, is the whole film just going to be collections of Polaroids? Is Marfori going to 'channel' Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962)?"

Anyway, the Polaroids thankfully stop, and Tony takes Cindy to the Italian Alps. On the way, Cindy says the forest reminds her of Snow White, so they start whistling a bizarre mutation of "Whistle While You Work", changed because Marfori and company weren't about to pay licensing fees on the Disney tune, assuming they could have gotten clearance. Then they pick up a sleazy-looking hitchhiker (who wouldn't?) who has a bizarre story about someone chasing her. We know she's bad news, because we saw her attack someone with her "evil clutch" (her fake, metamorphosizing, demony-hand) in the opening. (By the way, another prominent "evil clutch" seems to be on Tony's Jeep Laredo, at least judging from the soundtrack.) They get to the apparently deserted but beautifully bucolic village they're going to be staying in (a staple of European horror from the late 1960s through the late 1980s), and meet the Red Baron--well, that's what he looks like, anyway, I didn't actually catch his name in the film, if they gave it--who is a writer of "supernatural stories". He "scares" the sleazy hitchhiker by his mere appearance, and tells a story that freaks out Tony and Cindy. They eventually go hiking, all hell breaks loose, and the film goes down the toilet.

Even though Evil Clutch is very roughly a variation on the Evil Dead (1981 & 1987) films, its aping of Raimi's work led to some remarkable cinematography and sound design--much of it significantly different than Evil Dead. Yes, there's that pitch-bendy, almost cartoonish sound effect accompanying the "evil force" that is symbolized by a quickly moving camera at unusual heights and angles, but Marfori and his cinematographer Marco Isoli utilize the technique very effectively.

Even better is the extended sequence when the "Red Baron" is telling his story. There's a fabulous steadicam shot (and if it wasn't a steadicam, it's even more fabulous) that follows our "heroes" down a very long, twisting set of stairs. This eventually turns into a similar "tracking" shot through a somewhat dune-filled beach. This sequence is simply beautiful, and wonderfully matches the circuitous bizarreness of the "Red Baron's" story. Eventually it is intercut with weird, fish-eye lens shots, which also recur later in the film. There is equally admirable cinematography throughout the rest of the first half.

Plus, the acting in the first half isn't bad, and the story--although the typical dream logic stuff of European (and Asian, by the way) horror films--is quite entertaining.

But, along comes the second half. The first problem in the second half is that it takes place in a dark forest and/or at night. Why is that a problem? Because apparently Ad Reinhardt, the artist famous for his "all black" paintings, was the lighting director. In other words, the lighting in the second half simply sucks. It seems like they just weren't using lights most of the time. More often than not, the screen is mostly black, with occasional dots and streaks of light, or, say, Tony's pants, which were white, as the only thing visible. Experimental lighting is fine. But I need to see _something_ if I'm supposed to be following a story.

Next, for some odd reason, the acting goes down the tubes in the second half. I remember thinking, "Hey, this Coralina Tassoni is a decent actor" in the earlier parts of the film. In the second part, I was trying to figure out why Marfori would let her overact like that. Maybe there were really two different directors on the film?

Finally, the story and the delicious atmosphere Marfori worked so hard to build in the first half just disappears. It ends up being a set of random "attack" scenes, with random monsters, random locations, and so on. I think the only dialogue in the last part of the film is people screaming names or just making sounds. That can work in some films, but this one had an interesting story. What happened to it?

On the other hand, there is one redeeming quality in the last half--the gore. For a low-budget flick, the gore is pretty decent here. The only problem is that we can't see half of it, because Ad Reinhardt is using thick black gels on the lights, if he's using lights, and it also ends up being random--why do zombies have a sunlight aversion suddenly? Why are heads exploding? Why are zombies melting like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz (1939)?

So I can't really recommend this film, although the first half is worth watching. If only there were a "logical" point to turn it off at around the 50 minute mark.

This was a disappointment. After reading something like "the most extreme excursion into horror in Troma's history" on Troma's website, I was fooled into thinking this would be a strong Italian gore flick. I have expected lack of plot but also the promised gore. What I got was one castration that wasn't overly graphic neither impressive, guy named Tony being repeatedly mutilated by a zombie, Tony's unconvincing rubber head and the final demise of demons via chainsaw and sunlight. There is not as much gore as the promotion promises and Evil Clutch can't be compared to blood soaked splatterfests by Andreas Schnaas. The impact of the violence on display is somewhat weakened by ridiculous reactions of actors, especially the guy who plays Tony, but I don't want to complain about acting in low budget Italian horror movie. The thing that annoyed me was the lack of characters, there are only five people in the whole movie. This leads to overlong scenes of two tourists being chased and tormented by three demons. All characters have very little to do in the second half of the movie. If there were more possible victims of demons popping up just to be massacred, the actor playing bald headed zombie wouldn't have to kill Tony in such ridiculous fashion-first crushing his hands with a stone, then letting him go, later ripping his head off and carrying it around in endless shots that allow viewers to see how fake that artificial head is. It is sad that the makers didn't use their equipment and props more effectively.

Up until yesterday, it was Demon Wind (1990) that held the coveted top spot on my list of most blatant and bloody awful Evil Dead rip-offs, but that pile of dung has now been pushed into second place by Andreas Marfori' s Evil Clutch, a cheap and nasty Italian imitation of Sam Raimi's cult classic so flagrant that it even has the nerve to refer to its demons/monsters as 'the evil dead'!

After perhaps the most tedious credits sequence ever committed to film—a seemingly never-ending series of Polaroid snaps with a couple chattering inanely about their travels around Europe on the soundtrack—it's straight into Raimi mode for the first of countless hand-held low-angle tracking shots, which follows a young couple into a barn where they begin to make out. The bloke doesn't seem to be put off too much by the fact his bird is a bit of a minger, but when the gnarly pincer that has been hiding up her snatch tears off his junk, he's clearly wishing that he'd had higher standards.

Now, at this point, you're probably thinking to yourself 'Hey! This film actually sounds pretty cool', but trust me, it isn't, because after the 'claw in the cooch', it all goes rapidly downhill: Cindy (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) and Tony (Diego Ribon), the annoying couple who were yakking over the opening credits, make an appearance and spend most of the first half of the film wandering aimlessly around the Alps engaged in further dull conversation, occasionally bumping into a strange man with an electronic voice-box who tells them weird stories, and the woman who owns the vagina with the vice-like grip who turns out to be a witch. Any semblance of a plot vanishes completely.

The second half of the film is a little more lively, with quite a lot of cheap-jack gore on display, including crushed hands, an exploding decapitated head, some chainsaw gore and a fish-hook in the face, but I found that no amount of unconvincing severed body parts and bloody wounds could possibly compensate for Marfori's derivative visuals and incomprehensible script, the dreadful acting, dismal lighting, or Cataldi-Tassoni's irritating non-stop hysterical screaming.

Yes it is a low budget movie, and yes my expectations were not high, but it did have potential to be a good cult classic. Typical start to an 80's Horror movie. Special effects were what I expected but started decent. Had potential to build into a very interesting story and all. After they get the low down on the mysterious girl they help the movie goes down from there. Lots of where does that come from or fit in. No explanations or direction to what was going on. Then they try and add some gore and action that is weak. Couple of Undead show up and go after the leading lady but then just stop. Then they come after her again- Stupid part near the end is when Claire gets hooked in the mouth by the undead who knows how to use the fishing pole and reel. Then girl escapes and runs through woods crying for help for about 5 minutes, cut scene to evil girl and she wakes up and screams! Seemed to me the director or writer just wanted to quickly wrap it up. Would've been nice to see if there was an uncut version that was better.

Known as Evil Clutch in the U.S., this film translates as The Forest 1, with the number referring to the proliferation of sequels in its native Italy at the time. Written and directed by Andrea Marfori, it's the story of an American student and her Italian boyfriend on vacation who run afoul of a female hitchhiker who is truly a demon.

It's pretty much an even lower-budget version of Evil Dead, with the demonic witch having googly eyes, an exposition spouting horror author who speaks with a crazy voicebox, a town where monsters are coming back because we've forgotten about them, as well as decapitations and hand removals that would give George Lucas a mitachlorian-rich wet dream.

You'd think I'd like an Italian movie filled with blood and body organs that makes no sense more than I like this movie, but even I can recognize when something is coming together at all. It's the kind of movie that probably sent Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni back into the loving arms of Argento films, happy for their comparably high level of narrative cohesion.

EVIL CLUTCH

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

This Italian film (originally titled Il Bosco) has that wonderful atmosphere of the better Italian films from the 70's and the 80's, including the wonderfully disturbing English dubbing. It is probably influenced by the highly popular Evil Dead, but definitely not a rip off. If we were to say that, all vampire themed films would be Dracula rip offs and fortunately certain themes can be explored in many different ways. The Italians have very often taken some inspiration from certain American films,only to take the themes to new and higher levels. And one thing sets this one apart: there is none of the distracting humor that made Evil Dead way too funny to be terrifying. An American girl and her Italian boyfriend take a vacation in the Alps and are lured in a web of inescapable horrors. That seems a simple enough plot, but of course there is more to it than that. Evil Clutch builds the tension tantalizingly slow by using long shots of seemingly trivial happenings, but as the film progresses it becomes clear that there is a very specific need for this, as the horror, when it shows itself, is all the more terrifying. A good example is the meeting with the writer (who disturbingly speaks with an electronic voice device due to an operation) that gets more claustrophobic as it goes on. In the last half hour the slowly built tension in unleashes in a never-a-dull-moment stream of horrifying events that keep my eyes glued to the screen and **spoiler alert** the climax is not the ultimate gruesome gore laden scenes, but what comes after that: our heroine fleeing from the place of horrors in a long and stunningly acted scene of absolute fear, thus going back to the slow pace of the beginning of the film, but in entirely different circumstances. A much overlooked film, which can be corrected now that it is released on DVD as part of the Toxie's Triple Terror volume 2 set.

This Eurotrash film has a pretty potent opening scene wherein a furry arm with razor-sharp claws protrudes from a woman's vagina to emasculate her lover after they have sex.

From this point forward, the film becomes an ambling, anything-goes free-form scribble...perhaps the story is horribly underdeveloped, or maybe the editing is atrocious, or possibly the copy I acquired is cut to ribbons...it's hard to say. For all it's worth, it vaguely appears that a young vacationing couple has had the misfortune of encountering a witch/succubus of some type. After numerous macabre events unfold, they end up in a supernatural quandary strikingly similar to the one presented in THE EVIL DEAD. My use of "similar", it should be noted, is in direct reference to specific situational issues and their stylistic execution, but certainly not pertinent to quality. This film is strictly amateur-hour stuff, but it's definitely lightly peppered with moments of murky atmosphere, and it serves up a heaping helping of pretty sickening gore.

EVIL CLUTCH is not a good film, but it does encompass a peculiar surrealism...certain viewers may actually appreciate the undisciplined tangle of creepy images, and the fact that they are defiantly inadherent to any button-down structural format.

4/10

Sex is a crude, disgusting thing, and Evil Clutch has "sex" written all over it. It's a full-on nasty, gritty, down-and-dirty assault on the glamour of sexuality and the fetish of... domination, I'd have to say. Featuring a witch with a claw-hand where a vagina should be (and only comes out when she's getting fresh with one of her fellas), her creepily obsessed father who follows her around without letting her know, her zombie sex-slave who she keeps chained in a kind of horse-pen hidden by foliage and dark shadows, the slave chasing around her other lovers and killing them in a playfully aggressive way, and the world's strangest plant ever- one that only seems to eat testicles. Is the witch killing the men to feed the plant? Does the plant give her powers? And most importantly, what the hell does she mean when she says, "It's not all over! It'll never end! One day, all of this will be destroyed!" I have absolutely no idea but I think I like it. Kind of like a Rita Repulsa rant, only with some kind of nightmare-connotation. It's schlocky as all hell, and in any other film, I would have groaned and rubbed my eyes to check that they were really seeing what I thought they were seeing. But this is the real deal.

The plot begins with a creepily romantic montage of photographs, acquainting us with the main characters- a new couple who met in Europe. Him undoubtedly Italian (the hunky and quietly intense Diego Ribon). Her Italian but posing as American, I believe (the lovely Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, from Argento's Opera and Lamberto Bava's Demons 2). Some plot summaries make mention of her being a college student, so perhaps she met him studying abroad. They're a happy couple, but when they meet the witch, things begin to get strange. Their plan to head into the mountains for their camping vacation is detoured by a stop into a local village, which is completely vacant of people. They then meet the witch's father, a man who uses an electronic machine to amplify the vibrations from his throat. In place of a voice, he has a disturbingly sharp-pitched robotic buzz. He tells the two vague clues that there's curse that hovers over the area. Then, he tells them a story about a couple like them who are making out on the beach when the man suddenly, inexplicably gets the impulse to kill his girlfriend and bury her in the sand.

It's moments like this that make Clutch something worth seeing. It's so bizarre, you can't help but be transfixed by it. I've never been able to forget it and whenever I watch it, I can't take my eyes off it. Maybe that's because it's compellingly bad. It's hard to tell with Italian horror movies. And after seeing at least two dozen by now, I have to say- the more confusing, the better. As long as something's happening, it doesn't matter how insane it is. And Evil Clutch is never at a loss of things to show you. It's the closest film I've ever seen that came to real insanity. Not because it's convincing at showing us characters losing their minds. But rather, because it follows a progression of a movie with no sanity or logic or sensibility. Which makes it feel like a pretty real horror. It's almost Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like in its' long sequences of people walking or running off alone, not knowing where they're going but looking for anything they can find that looks like a way out. The film is highly skilled at dragging out scenes of driving and walking, adding music or taking it away, and making them almost too real.

The freak-factor of Clutch is essential to how unpleasant a film it is. And what I can only hope were expectations on the part of some that seeing the couples together at the beginning of the movie would provide "guys" with gratuitous "T" or "A." Neither are here. Which I have to say is another thing that makes the horror more pure. There are only suggestions of sexually-driven acts of violence. One spectacle, a death scene, that almost resembles a wrestling match- one guy taunting (with a high-pitched cackle) and humiliating the other, knocking him down, then choking him before finishing him off. It's almost him saying he'll punish (the victim) for taking his woman. Again, in any other movie I would have groaned. It's a stupid idea if you see it that way. But it's "too" creative and detailed. And too animalistic to feel like a typical zombie or serial killer dispatching. As this is happening, there's a quietly piercing electric rock guitar wailing and a neatly rumbling drum-machine beat chanting this on. And as the attacker finds the victim, he laughs at him and grabs him in an aggressively sexual way. There's absolutely no mistaking what's really going on, under the grunting.

It's a stunning film in many ways. All of them unappealing. But effective as some of the darkest, most deeply disturbing horror I've ever experienced. I might feel that this is was just a strange film and not something much more, were it not for the finale. The finale kind of puts a cap on the weirdness, as the camera angles get so uncomfortably close to every detail of what's happening than you'd ever want to be. I was speechless as I watched blood-gushing brains, fish-hooks tear into skin, and the greatest zombie meltdown sequence this side of 1986's Street Trash. Again, like 1974's classic Chainsaw, what makes this ending work is that every second is played out in graphic detail until it almost becomes agonizing. I enjoy that and so rarely get to see it in horror. The astonishing finale with an exhausted, terrorized Tassoni trying to find a way out of the maze-like woods, plays a lot like the hedge sequence from 1980's The Shining, only all in one shot.

I'm tired of reading reviews by people who constantly wanna compare this film to other films, and then say this is a step down. Yes, we all have seen The Evil Dead, and if we have seen this trash gore job, we know it's an Evil Dead rip-off. Basically, all low-budget horror films are rip-offs of other better horror films. Sorry. Anyway, Evil Clutch was just re-released on one of those Toxie's Triple Terror DVD sets and I watched it the other night. I saw this before about a decade ago on Cinemax when Cinemax had Troma Sunday Nights, or something like that.This is basic low-budget horror made to appeal to the gore fans. The story is kind of hard to follow and the first half is very boring, filled with long, pandering shots of the location it was filmed on, and endless babble between the oh-so-boring lead couple. The second half is relentless with the gore and violence, it's mean-spirited, nightmarish, ugly, and has people running around screaming, squirting blood, chopping limbs, and acting in a chaotic manner. I enjoyed this film for the fact that all it wanted to get across in the second half is violence and hysteria. The story never adds up but it's an okay view for the gore or '80's horror fan. I must agree with that one guy one here who said it had to have been shot by two directors. Features severed hands, chopped off heads and a scary vagina. Two and a half stars.

American tourist Cindy (cute Coralina C. Tassoni) and her Italian boyfriend Tony (likable Diego Ribon) decide to go on a peaceful and romantic hiking trip in the Alps. Things quickly turn sour when the couple run afoul of sexy, but lethal witch Arva (the alluring Elena Cantarone) and some kind of equally nasty supernatural force that makes the dead come back to vicious shambling life as crusty-faced grunting zombies. Writer/director Andreas Merfori cheerfully eschews basic logic and narrative cohesion in favor of an utterly over-the-top, ridiculous, and hence pretty amusingly atrocious anything-goes free-form story structure which becomes more increasingly absurd and laughable as the flimsy plot shamelessly copies "The Evil Dead" and fumbles toward a predictable anticlimactic "it ain't over yet" conclusion. Moreover, Marfori manages to build a fair amount of reasonably spooky gloom-doom atmosphere in the opening third and pours on the disgusting gore with considerable sicko glee (revolting highlights include Arva castrating a helpless guy with a claw from between her legs, Tony's hands being torn off, a messy decapitation, and a grisly chainsaw carving). The acting is surprisingly decent, with Luciano Crovato easily stealing the show with his gloriously loopy portrayal of Algernoon, a nutty local writer who speaks through an irritating electronic voicebox. Marco Isoli's dynamic and stylish cinematography makes inspired and invigorating frequent use of a madly darting to and fro Steadicam. Adriano M. Vitali's shivery score hits the spine-tingling spot. The dusty'n'desolate underground catacombs setting is genuinely creepy. While this flick suffers from a plodding pace and a meandering narrative (Cindy and Tony spend what seems like an eternity trekking through the woods), it still possesses a certain winningly clunky and pervasive cheesiness that's impossible to either resist or dislike. Entertaining nonsensical tripe.