Reviews
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
They don't make em like this anymore...
This film has the same wonderfully subtle direction as "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter," "Diary Of A Mad Housewife" and "Goodbye Columbus." The lost 60s/70s style for dialogue films with immediately profound social messages is probably best exampled in "EGROMMM" -- Newman's daughter (Nell Potts) plays the stoic, life-dampened child who refuses to let her drunken slob of a mother destroy her brilliance.. at least for now. We're just slightly distant observers in this style of filmmaking. You won't get under anyone's skin or into anyone's head. But you may have grown up in similar circumstances, god forbid. An excellent film about the subtleties of abuse without coming across preachy in the slightest. Deeply moving.
Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980)
A psychotic nightmare!
This is what I love about "Italian" horror. With titles almost as wild as "And You Shall Scream Forever While Worms Eat Your Eyes!" (which could never work in America), and with such truly nightmarish discontinuity of plot and characters, Gates Of Hell, like so many other Fulci classics, delivers it all. One truly lasting effect of this particular film is the crashing synthesizer explosions as sense-shockers to add to the quick zoom on gory corpses and the living dead. The combination of the maggot infested dead and what is ringing in your ears imprints forever a sensory stamp ala "Fulci."
Suspiria (1977)
Deco/Nouveau Terror
To date there has not been a film so overwhelmingly beautiful in its use of both existing and specially produced deco and nouveau sets and design -- and only a genius such as Argento could properly light these edifices with the colors to trap them into the dream-like trance of a true classic, abiding, flawless horror film. There is not a moment of this film which is not dripping with artistic excellence, and yet it never lets go of the traditionally macabre, dank, seedy and vile undercurrent in most Italian horror. Susperia is like a lilly floating in putrefied blood. Without question, one of the greatest achievements in horror to date.
Grave of the Vampire (1972)
Strange and disturbing
This film, which I believe was distributed as a double-bill with 'Garden of the Dead,' has several disturbing elements which shoved it over the line of a traditional vampire movie; vampire rape, for one. Vampire offspring for another. Take two parts "Count Yorga: Vampire" and one part "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and you have this flick. But it is an excellent B-movie in the horror genre with a definite 70s flair.
Garden of the Dead (1972)
Creepy For Low Budget Horror
I saw this film back when local authorities decided it was too sick for a "GP" rating, and clung to the old "M" (Mature Audience) rating, along with its double-feature at that time, "Grave of the Vampire." It hit my hometown of Little Rock with a major splash, complete with ghouls wandering the theatre lobby and plenty of local promo. Had to sneak in to see it. The movie is about prisoners held in some godforsaken backwoods labor camp who huff the fumes of formaldehyde all night to 'get off.' Suffice it to say, they don't stay dead after that (they seem to meet with unfortunate accidents alot). Lots of wandering dead guys in fog, dark shots with creepy underlit green faces. Low budget but great B-movie horror thrills.
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972)
A bit o' trivia about the films promotion
For the hardcore B-horror movie junkie, I thought I'd pass along some interesting trivia related to this movies promotional scheme. This flick came to my town on the drive-in circuit and somehow managed to talk several area restaurants into offering a special menu for kids (!) that hawked the movie and simultaneously grossed out parents. The menu featured the individual restaurants usual fair, but with new titles... blood shake.. flesh strips (french fries)... brain delight (jello). The half rotten skull visage on the cover of the menu was enough to send most parents into fits. I wish I had kept it. Talk about a collectible! It's a great film, though. Enough tongue in cheek to make its sick theme tolerable. That menu made it impossible for me to see it. Had to wait until I found it on video many years later.