User reviews

Umberto Lenzi's "Spasmo" is a very weird little film, even by gialli standards. It's a strange combination of Jean Rollin (the middle part in particular feels like something straight out of a Rollin film, in particular "Fascination") and David Lynch, so much so that one can argue how director Umberto Lenzi might be something of a poor man's Lynch. Nonetheless, it works, even if it takes itself way too seriously, often getting surrealism mixed up with cheesiness. The dialog is awfully goofy, and the script jumps all over the place. This might've been Lenzi's intention, and here, he shows that he is actually a pretty competent director, creating genuine suspense as well as some of the most haunting imagery in a genre film. Ennio Morricone's equally dreamy soundtrack perfectly matches the disorienting set pieces and it's perverse sexuality, and it's quite possibly it's highlight alongside the gorgeous cast of women. For those reasons alone, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, also considering how it's pretty tame compared to the works of Fulci, Argento or even Bava, but I love this kind of bizarre cinema, and I don't think the lack of extreme violence and nudity hurt the film at all. So overall, a 7/10 for me - a flawed but throughly entertaining and somewhat obscure piece of Italian horror.

Spasmo(1974)Umberto Lenzi Christian Bauman (Robert Hoffmann,Death Carries a Cane, Naked Girl Killed in the Park) and his girlfriend while strolling along a beach see what they think is s dead body of a woman lying face down in the sand, as it turns out the girl named Barbara (Suzy Kendall,The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,Circus of Fear) is alive and claims to have passed out with the heat, but when Christian turns his back for a moment Barbara speeds away in her car leaving only a clue of a jar marked Tucania, which turns out to the name of a large yacht moored in the local harbour, Christian gatecrashes a party on board in order to see more of this alluring young woman, the host and Barbara's lover Alex is none to pleased at his intrusion but allows him to stay anyway. Meanwhile a mysterious hit-man with a gun and the habit of rolling marbles round his hand watches the yacht from afar, but who is his intended prey?

Barbara tired of the party on board offers Christian, the major shareholder in his family's plastics business a night he cant forget all he has to do is lose his beard, he doesn't need to be asked twice and before long he is in Barbara's bathroom removing the unwanted hair, but he is suddenly interrupted by the hit-man who comes through the window brandishing his gun, in the skirmish that follows Christian shoots and kills the intruder, Barbara horrified says they should run away together instead of notifying the police, they do this but return soon after only to find the body gone.

Barbara suggests staying in the house of a Brazilian painter friend for a while, as she is away, it's a house that is filled with stuffed birds of prey and caged exotic animals, reluctantly Christian agrees, but the house has been let out to an ex reporter and his young female friend, a bizarre couple who persistently act strange, in fact Christian thinks everyone seems to be acting strange, he constantly thinks he is being watched or followed and nobody except him seems to be acting rationally at all, not even his new love.

Nonetheless they accept an invitation to stay the night, where he has a quick liason with Clorinda the young woman of the house after which he flees the house speeding off to try and clear his head as to what is happening, he hears a dull thud from the trunk of the car, when he investigates he finds the hit-man there apparently dead, but he jumps up and orders Christian to drive to a local quarry where he aims to kill him for sure this time, again Christian gets the better of him kills him in a gloriously gruesome way, before setting him alight and pushing the car of the edge, below in the quarry he sees a man that he believes has been following him in a car with Barbara, he is even more confused now and follows them, they lead him to his own family business where he overhears them discussing with his brother Fritz Bauman (Ivan Rassimov,Jungle Holocaust,All the Colors of the Dark) their plan to have him locked up,the strange man mistakingly tells Fritz his brother has been killed in the quarry, Fritz is happy with this news, but this is the final straw for Christian and he sets out to take revenge on his sibling.

A really bizarre film, with really off the wall dialogue,Christian after a mere few hours of knowing Barbara calls her his "sweet little whore" and the film is full of things that just don't add up and characters that don't seem to have any relevance or relation to each other. Interspersed between all the action are various scenes of latex dummies being hung, stabbed and found mutilated, these add to the films quirkiness and leave the viewer baffled as to their meaning., the films linear storyline you would think would make it easier to follow but its not the case, its not until the films finale that Lenzi finally reveals the brutal and shocking revelations. Susan George clone Kendall puts in a fine performance as does Hoffman, Rassimov fits nicely into his usual bad guy role only this time with a twist. This is not your typical Giallo and here Lenzi who took over from Lucio Fulci as director of the project after he quit, dispenses with genre cornerstones (blood, gore,masked killer,black gloves etc..a fact that might be off putting for Giallo traditionalists) in favour of colourful characterisations and an exploration of madness and the psyche, in fact he also dispenses with the usual dark urban landscapes in favour of burning bright sunshine by the sea, a brave move that just about succeeds. Ennio Morricone's score is more percussive than usual and is at times generic but not without its charm. Another surprise contributor to the US release was one Giorgio Romero?, who added scenes of gore at the American distributors request much to the chargrin of Umberto, these were later removed for the Shriek Show DVD, the picture quality of which is decent but the sound suffers from the occasional hiss, also included is a brief but very interesting interview with Lenzi who is never one to mince his words

Umberto Lenzi is still playing the old school giallo hand here, which means less stabbing and more psychological games, but that doesn't mean he hasn't found new ways of presenting it. He spends the first hour of the film plunging you into a confusing plot, the explains what you've witnessed, then turns everything on its head again. Nice!

Christian (Robert Hoffman) is out at the beach with lady friend when he spots a corpse lying on the sand. The corpse turns out to be very much alive Barbara (Kendall) whom Christian becomes infatuated with. She runs off, leaving a thermos (!) with a strange name on it. This leads Christian to a boat where he meets Barbara again, and the two of them head off to a motel for some filthy squeazy, as long as Christian shaves off his beard. Of course, some strange man turns up in the bathroom and tries to kill him, resulting in one dead stranger. This happens in 75% of all one night stands.

Things go from bad to worse for Christian as he ends up in a never ending nightmare of people who may or may not who they say they are, dead strangers who come back to life, empty houses and their occupants, and the constant shots of mannequins dressed in sexy lingerie that have been stabbed with blades. Lenzi piles on the paranoia and the mysteries but doesn't lose focus, bringing it all together nicely (even if the twists are a bit cliché by this point).

Still, despite saying "Oh! It's that kind of plot twist!" Lenzi still has a couple of curveballs, one particularly grim and shocking. Lenzi keeps things nice and trippy for the most part too, as certain characters turn up as different people, and even what we've watched up to a point may not be the whole truth. The disturbing sight of sexualised dummies, which seems to have been switched with the real thing on purpose, just adds to the disorientation. The only downside is that some of the acting is a bit iffy. I'm looking at you, Kendall! Ivan Rassimov was fine though.

What people might have a bit of trouble with is home film that Rassimov watches in his office. It has all the zooms, focus shifts and edits of a professional film. When I think about it, I wonder if that was deliberate too...possibly.

I don't know whether it was director Umberto Lenzi's intention or not, but in Spasmo he created a masterpiece of the absurd, a film so convoluted, disjointed, and bizarre in execution that it becomes strangely hypnotic, forcing the viewer to watch to the very end. I can't say I particularly liked the film enough to recommend it to anyone but avid giallo fans, but one thing I can guarantee... you won't have seen anything else quite like it before.

The film stars Robert Hoffman as Christian, a businessman slowly drawn into a strange and terrifying mystery after finding the enigmatic Barbara (Suzy Kendall) laying unconscious on a beach. To try and adequately explain the plot further would take me well over my IMDb word limit, but suffice to say that it's a disorientating head-scratcher, a psychological thriller that veers wildly from one scene to another, seemingly at random, with characters that repeatedly come and go for no rhyme or reason; the dialogue is equally strange, and yet the cast plays everything with complete sincerity, even when having to utter lines as strange as ""Hey, you remind me of a dying chicken" and "It's all so absurd, meaningless. And what's absurd is dangerous".

In true giallo style, Lenzi attempts to pull all the plot threads together in the film's closing moments, but although the revelations in the finalé do justify Lenzi's strange style of direction to a degree, and clears up why there are frequent shots of female mannequins throughout the film, it doesn't adequately explain why Christian is afraid of the dark, or why Barbara prefers her men without beards.

Umberto Lenzi's "Spasmo" is not really a horror movie as much as a psychological thriller. There's minimal violence, instead focusing on the main character's (Robert Hoffmann) descent into confusion. But as Lenzi explained in an interview, he had the flick turn out as it does to demonstrate how sick Italy's elites are. Like Lenzi's earlier "Orgasmo" (retitled "Paranoia" in the US), "Spasmo" shows that all is not what it seems in this supposedly nice group of people. Still, the sequence of events leading up to that have some pretty neat occurrences. I will say that I liked "Orgasmo" better (partially for the scene of Carroll Baker in the shower), but this one is definitely worth seeing. Also starring Suzy Kendall, Ivan Rassimov and Guido Alberti.

Giallo movie starring Robert Hoffman, Ivan Rassimov & the incredibly beautiful Suzy Kendall & directed by Umberto Lenzi, who is perhaps best known for his cannibal movies. This one mixes up murder, love & insanity, focusing on the relationship between two brothers. I first viewed this in Italian & under the influence of a few beers and to be honest I totally lost what was going on. So I have just viewed it again but sober & in English. Thankfully it all made sense! Not the best giallo by any means but its well shot, has a nice musical score, packs in some suspense & has a good cast. Pretty tame on the sex & violence front. Rated 15 in the UK.Strange title though!

To fully enjoy many of the gialli I've seen recently, the viewer must, as I call it, take a "leap of logic". What I mean is that if the viewer were to stop and think about how illogical things in the movie were, they probably wouldn't enjoy the movie as much. Well, with Spasmo the viewer is asked to take a Grand Canyon size leap of logic. The problem is, I only made it half way across. The illogical actions and reactions the character make throughout the movie ruined much of my enjoyment. When faced with a situation, in almost every instance the characters act and react in the most illogical manner possible in order to advance the storyline. A logical decision by any character at any time would have brought the movie to a screeching halt.

That's not to say that there weren't things I liked about the movie. The latex dummies hanging from trees were a nice touch. The way the murders are shown in flashback at the end of the movie was a fairly innovative idea. But, there weren't enough of these moments.

The acting is what you would expect. The score by Morricone, while good, is not one of his best. The revelation of the murderer is by far the best part of the movie. The DVD from Shriek Show is a mixed bag - good picture, but lots of hiss in spots on the soundtrack.

Overall, this is not one of the better gialli I've seen. If you want to see a far superior giallo by Lenzi, see Seven Blood-Stained Orchids. For what it's worth, I'll give Spasmo 5/10.

Full of fetish images of inflatable love dolls hanged on trees or covered in blood, this madness of a movie is about the incoming insanity over a young industrial captain, who probably provoked the death of his father several years before. Not really bloody (most of the killings are strangling, and worst of all viewed all together at the end of the movie), not very sexy, not particularly stylish, without any unforgettable scenes and even with a very bland soundtrack, this movie is not a worthy successor of Argento giallos

Murder maestro, Umberto Lenzi's fabulously monikered Giallo has an equally perverse, creepily convoluted plot to match it! The passage of time has done little to dull the stilleto sharp edge of Lenzi's compellingly off-centre, audaciously twisted Giallo! Excitingly, Spasmo's skewed narrative takes more wayward U-turns than, Robert Downey Jr's no less circuitous route to sobriety! The genuinely thrilling opening gambit is a seamily bizarre sequence wherein a courting couple grimly discover the film's morbid leitmotif, an eerily lifelike female manikin suspended grimly from a tree! Driven by an especially evocative Morricone score we are plunged breathlessly into the palpably schizo realm of Machiavellian business dealings, ostentatious playboys, twitchy-eyed assassins, voluptuously vulpine Femme fatales, and darkly fulminating sibling rivalries!

While highly regarded, I don't feel that, Lenzi's scintillating psychodrama 'Spasmo' is afforded the avidly expressed plaudits it so ardently deserves. Intriguingly, it doesn't rely on the razor-slashing rages of a ubiquitously black gloved killer, and its conspicuous lack of nudity is an atypical trope for maestro, Lenzi. While relatively chaste, Spasmo's exemplary, tantalizingly twisted, dreamily diabolical plot concludes explosively in a spectacularly lurid climax!!! Featuring Euro-cult luminaries, Suzy Kendall, Ivan Rassimov, Monica Monet, with a mesmeric, paranoid turn by the vastly underrated Robert Hoffman. Hoffman's increasingly desperate descent into a hallucinatory spectrum of deadly duplicity is sure to keep Gialli gawkers blissfully boggled! Umberto Lenzi's stylishly sinister Giallo exudes a beguiling strangeness, maintaining its fearful fascination without resorting to ostentatious camerawork, excessive gore, and formalized black-gloved overkill. For me, 'Spasmo' remains a captivatingly serpentine, not infrequently orgasmic Giallo masterclass!

Finding a woman on the beach, a man soon finds himself in a strange and bizarre series of encounters that convinces him he's going insane and digs deeper into the overall series of events in order to find the true culprit at the center of his torment and stop their game.

Overall, this one was quite an enjoyable if flawed Giallo. One of the more engaging aspects of this one is the fact that it works in quite a fun and wholly entertaining central mystery that makes for an appropriately thrilling mystery. There's a lot to say here with the way it starts off finding her on the beach and leading to the general craziness of the encounter in the bathroom before being whisked away and into the rather strange set-up which all comes off with a great deal of rather fun Giallo fervor as the situation makes for a fine outcome. The fact that it soon involves them getting deeper and deeper into the conspiracy involving the mysterious friend and the insistence that the initial murder took place despite all the people telling him that he's going insane after no such incident took place. With the assassin trailing them into the lighthouse and begins toying with them who begin trying to convince each other that something isn't happening even though there's plenty of evidence to suggest someone is after them stalking around the villa, there's plenty of suspenseful moments during the night and leading into the discovery of their true relationships, this is quite nicely handled here. That gives the film a large amount of genuine atmosphere during the lead-up to the finale as the encounter at the villa where they run into the still-alive assassin and the later scenes in the rock quarry which sets the double-cross in motion and the final encounter at the house which gives this one an incredibly strong and somewhat shocking finish which is right in line with the remaining parts of the film. While these make this one enjoyable, there's still a few flaws here. The biggest issue is that regardless of how much fun it is to unravel the main mystery there's little about it that really makes you care about what's happening. The way this one goes about trying to make the whole film about their strange sibling rivalry and setting the whole plot in motion is simply not in the slightest bit rewarding or even fun, and there's little about it that makes sense at all either. It really shows no sense of logic as for why this particular plan had to be set into motion for these events to play out as this one tries to make it seem, and there are so many internal gaps of logic that are featured here which really does drag this one down with such a wholly incoherent and illogical storyline no matter how much fun it is to play out. This even leads to the films' supposed inclusion of the murdered dolls around the woods that are continually showcased here which are so bizarre and clueless that it's completely unknown why this one carries out the way it does and really just leaves the whole thing a giant mystery. These here are what really hold this one back.

Rated R: Language, Violence and Brief Nudity on mannequin figures.

By 1974 the giallo genre was running out of steam and the films were getting more complicated, more violent and altogether weirder in an attempt to keep viewers coming. Director Umberto Lenzi made two that year, this one and the equally absurd Eyeball, leaving one to hope that Lenzi was putting the audience on and not the stark raving lunatic the films give the impression he was. Whereas Eyeball is a more conventional giallo, with a hooded killer picking off a variety of unwitting victims, Spasmo is more of a "Gaslight"-inspired venture. Someone may be trying to drive the irrepressible Robert Hoffman mad, but he needs little help, and the last fifteen minutes contain the strangest twists I've yet seen in a giallo. Those looking for a stylish thriller will be disappointed by the plant-the-camera-and-shoot direction, and don't expect anything like a plot that's worth following or characters with any relation to human beings. What makes it worth seeing is the genuinely dream-like story, linear yet impossible to follow, and the way each sequence transition requires a twisted justification by the viewer to accept that Yes, maybe it is possible that someone would do this. Here and there a haunting Morricone score comes in, sad and lovely as the one in "My Dear Killer," and there are inexplicable scenes of an unseen man stabbing female dolls, his identity revealed only at the very end in one the finale's many left-field twists. The only giallo remotely comparable to this one is Death Laid An Egg, and at least that had the excuse of being from the 1960's and (I assume) the use of mind-altering chemicals by its creators. I can't imagine what state of mind the filmmakers of this mini-classic were in while making it, but you'd be hard-pressed to find another film like it.

I recently watched the Italian thriller 🇮🇹 Spasmo (1974) on a random streaming service. The storyline follows a couple in a hotel who are startled by a noise in the bathroom. When the boyfriend investigates, he is attacked by a gunman whom he ends up killing. As they attempt to flee, they discover the body has vanished, leading them to question who was behind the attack and why.

Directed by Umberto Lenzi (Ghosthouse), the film stars Robert Hoffman (Nights and Loves of Don Juan), Suzy Kendall (The Penthouse), Adolfo Lastretti (Syndicate Sadists), and Franco Silva (Patrick Still Lives).

Spasmo presents a mixed bag of hits and misses. It introduces a unique premise and creatively utilizes mannequins, adding an intriguing layer to the story. The plot unfolds with numerous twists, turns, and clever whodunit elements, keeping the audience engaged. While the kills are adequately set up, their execution falls short. The film features attractive actresses and some nudity, although less than traditional giallo films. However, it delivers a satisfying reveal and twist at the end.

In conclusion, Spasmo is an uneven movie with enough entertaining elements to warrant a viewing. I would rate it a 6/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Incredible start and build up of suspense! The first 2/3 of the film is close to perfect. However, it loses its way in the last 20 mins or so and limps to the conclusion.

Acting and cinematography were both great! And Ennio provides a very nice score. With a stronger, more coherent script, this could have been something special.

Lenzi claimed he had to rewrite and otherwise reimagine the film from scratch when he purportedly took it over from Fulci, but it's hard to imagine the original material being MORE of a mess. Character behaviors and plot are immediately senseless, and not in a "dream logic" way, but just haplessly so, with the pseudo-psychoanalytic wrapup feeble as an explanation for the murky events that precede it. The actors, esp. Robert Hoffman, do what they can--which admittedly in Felicity Kendall's case was never very much--but the script is so arbitrary, their emotional expressions are meaningless.

For a giallo, this is a weirdly bloodless affair (purportedly George Romero added murder scenes for the American release, but those aren't evident in the print I saw, which had digitally blurred the occasional partial nudity), with a rush of death scenes as flashbacks crammed in at the very end--to no effect, since we didn't know and don't care that any of these people had died. The film is well-produced in some nice settings, well-shot in widescreen format etc., but its.senselessness results in an uninvolving experience--there is little excitement or suspense here because we never grasp just what is happening or why. Until, of course, the last reel, when "all is explained" in a way just as arbitrary and silly as everything before it.

SPASMO is a gem, and possibly THE most preposterous, infinitely quotable, bafflingly ridiculous film i have ever seen!

The first half hour provides more belly laughs and crazy soundbites than most comedies, and this is supposed to be a deadly serious psychological horror film.

Find SPASMO. But first: watch the trailer! It's got to be the best trailer in the history of trailers; with a ranting, fevered italian bloke panting/groaning the word "SPASMO" at least ten times, ending in a final uttering of "SPASMO!" that sounds like he's constipated on the toilet, desperately trying to squeeze one out!

Wonderful, wonderful stuff. A joy to behold....

Quite possibly the weirdest 'Giallo' movie I've ever seen is this Umberto Lenzi Spasmo. I'll try to give you a glimpse of the plot. It's about love dolls, wait, no. It's about two brothers. Hmmm.. let me start over. It's about a killing that wasn't a killing. Oh, I give up Spasmo is Spasmo. There that should tell you enough. It's not something one would care to sit through more then once as the surprising lack of blood and sex, makes one focus on the plot more closer. And that's the problem right there. what IS the plot of Spasmo?? It's driving me mad I tell you MAD.. spasmo..SPASMO!!! It does have a vaguely hypnotizing effect to it though.

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: An Umberto Lenzi interview (which helped me try to decipher it); Stills gallery; Theatrical trailer; Trailers for "Eaten Alive", "Seven Bloodstained Orchids", and "What have you done to Solange?"