Reviews

"Cliffhanger + The Thing + Friday 13th + Scream + I Know What You Did Last Summer + Urban Legend + Shining + 1.000.000 other movies of the past".

See it to believe it! Nope, better stay home! :-)

First of all: I'm a HUGE fan of the original 1968 POTA. And this is not a remake of that movie. It's simply a reinvention of the same story, filtered through the eyes of one of the most creative Hollywood directors. Everything in this show work in a perfect way: the screenplay is inventive and brilliant. All the performers gave their best, in particularly Tim Roth portraing the main villain, General Thade, and Helena Bonham Carter under the make-up of the kind chimp Ari. Costumes, art direction, special effects are amazing! Great part of the success of this film is due to the wonderful make-up effects by the genial wizardy of Rick Baker and the complex score composed by the talent of the sublime Maestro Danny Elfman. Main titles (music and images together) are simply astonishing! Absolutely a must see by all the fans of fantastic cinema. Rating: 9/10.

After the huge disappointment of Argento's most recent films, "Nonhosonno" is a little surprise in the director's filmography. It's a return to Argento's roots, with a typical serial killer thrilling show. There are in the film a couple of sequences in which the public can recognize the original talent of the artist that gave us such masterpieces as "Deep Red" or "Suspiria", but the main problem with this movie is in some of the actors performances. While Von Sidow, Falk, Lavia and Scalondro are believable and flawless in their roles, Dionisi, Caselli and Zibetti (not to mention Puglisi, Lerici and Marchesini), gave us some of the worst performances ever seen in a motion picture. Some banal dialogs in the screenplay don't help the final results. Argento really needs to work on scripts written by other people, and possibly with a better artistic cast.