Review: Mad In Italy

Text © Richard Gary/Indie Horror Films, 2014
Images from the Internet

                    

Mad in Italy

Written and directed by Paolo Fazzini     
E²=G Production
Elite Entertainment         
60 minutes, 2011 / 2013    
www.MVDvisual.com

Let me say right at the start, the title of the film is a brilliant pun.

Director Fazzini is not only a filmmaker, but also a historian of Italian giallo films, especially from the ‘80s, and even put out an interesting documentary about the genre, titled Hanging Shadows: Perspectives on Italian Horror Cinema (reviewed directly below this one, or at HERE)

Like any genre, there are subgenres that make up the pie chart of the whole. And where does this one fit in? Well, it’s definitely closer to some of the noir works of Mario Bava and Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1975), say, than anything by Fulci or Lamberto Bava. Fazzini is certainly helped here by renowned cinematographer Mirco Sgarzi, who shot some incredibly beautiful works such as House of Flesh Mannequins (2009), reviewed by me HERE. His style various from artsy to perfectly lit reality, creating moods along the way that fit the tale

For this “inspired by true events” story, we meet our protagonist/antagonist, Davide (Gianluca Testa), a laborer who is let go from his blue collar job thanks to a downturn in the Italian economy (a result of the US collapse around 2008 thanks to the unelected president, Little Georgie Bush). But money is not his only problem, as we come to see him for the schizophrenic sadist that he is.

We come to realize that he has kidnapped a rich industrialist’s daughter (the beautiful Eleonora Bolla), and is keeping her tied up in his rented home in as hillside village on Sicily. But this is more than just a kidnapping, as his mental disease starts getting the better of him. After all, the tagline for this film is Witness the birth of anew serial killer.” While there is a healthy number of cast members, this really is about Davide and “the girl” (as she is known). As people come looking for her, or those who become involved with the drugs he has come to help sell to make some cash, bodies begin to pile up in somewhat gruesome ways.

Cinema giallo was recognized by a number of genre-specific elements, such as the quick zoom (I believe Mario Bava created it and Argento perfected it), and something that is used abundantly and quite effectively here, which is using primary colors to saturate a scene indicating affect or emotion. For example, while the girl is crying, Davide’s head cradled on her lap, they are bathed in a pale blue light; when Davide is having a scary hallucination, the room from where the fear is generating is a sharp red.

Some of the best of the gore and effects happen during these freakouts, such as a woman with a distorted mouth (check out the photos in the extras for a clear view of it), or being in the woods with a group of people biting chunks out of his flesh. While there is more story tension than gore (which is why this is a noir rather than horror), it looks incredibly well done, and the blood has just the right color and viscosity.

The location is also part of the story, with abandoned stone buildings contrasted by wooded areas. One of my favorite shots is of a wooded area you think is isolated, is revealed in a pan to be just on the outskirts of town. The best part of the genre, with this included, is that there are some truly unexpected moments that took me by surprise, which is a nice – er – surprise.

The extras are a 15-minute interview with the director as he walks us through some of the locations (no sets were used), back-scene photos, and two music videos.

There are some long gaps between physical violence, but the malevolence runs throughout. Gorehounds may balk at the space between kills, but those who understand these things will know that the tension building is all part of the fun, and Fazzini shows he knows how to do just that.

 

Trailer not embedding, so find it HERE.

 

Review: Hanging Shadows: Perspectives on Italian Horror Cinema

Text © Richard Gary/Indie Horror Films, 2014
Images from the Internet

                            

Hanging Shadows: Perspectives on Italian Cinema

Written, produced and directed by Paolo Fazzini          
Elite Entertainment         
60 minutes, 2005 / 2013    
www.MVDvisual.com

Before the VHS explosion of the ‘80s, it was rare to see an Italian horror films either on the screen or especially television.  What we did get was usually directed by Mario Bava, such as La maschera del demonio, aka The Mask of Satan, though it as more commonly known as Black Sunday (1960), and the terrifying I tre volti della paura, or as we knew it, Black Sabbath (1963), possibly Boris Karloff’s last truly scary role.

Of course, we kids didn’t know it was Italian, we just knew it was dubbed. Most of the films shown on this side of the Atlantic whatever the presentation medium, were highly edited, thanks to nudity, blood, and the last remnants of the Hollywood Code system. Besides, most horror viewers back then were teenage couples with the guys looking for reasons to put their arms around their dates.

In college, during the late 1970s, I was introduced to New Wave Italian cinema, such as Luchiano Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and the realism auteur Michael Antonioni. They were great, technically superb, but the left me kind of cold. I wasn’t sure why I was supposed to care about many of the characters and left me asking, “che cosa?” But it wasn’t until a few short years later that I discovered the piasan niche for which I was looking.

Italian horror cinema, as I said, really came into its golden days in the 1980s, when video stores were springing up every few blocks, its clients hungry for new products, with the two biggest sellers being horror and porn. It was easy to walk into any store and find campy and bloody delights. Names started to be known, like Leo Fulci, Dario Argento, and Lamberto Bava. The posters alone would become iconic, such as Fulci’s Zombie (aka Zombi 2, 1979 .

What made these films so popular was the sheer audacity of them. Many of them were silly, campy, or made no sense, but we later found out that was because they were edited, and usually had multiple names with each version being slightly different. We were seeing lots of gore, but distributors seemed to think that the bleak endings would not fit well with Middle America. It took many years to finally see the real end of The Gates of Hell (aka City of the Living Dead aka Paura nella citta dei morti veventi, 1980); in fact, it wasn’t until it was released on DVD.

The gore effects in these films were stunning: maggots falling out of zombie eyeholes, eyes yanked into shards of wood, bodies pulled apart, bugs eating away at flesh, heads pulled through a drill press, and blood spontaneously pouring out of eyes. Again, they ran from realistic to “fakey,” but it was always mechanical rather than digital. I used to love to try and figure out how they did it. I remember seeing a film where a women spews out her entire intestinal tract and laughing, and then not being able to look at work the next day when someone cut her finger.

If you talk to most of the up-and-coming filmmakers I’ve reviewed, such as Sean Weathers, Dustin Wayde Mills and Richard Marr-Griffin, they will all proudly bear witness to their Italian horror viewing backgrounds. This genre’s popularity has not changed over time, either. Just this past fall, a pal had a day of zombie film viewing with his friends (I was included), and two of them (Zombie and Michele Soavi’s Cemetery Man [aka Delamorte Delamore, 1994]) were of Italian origin, and it was still visceral.

This hour-long documentary is an Italian import as well, created nearly a decade ago, but only recently released in a non-academic forum. We meet many of the directors, writers, and special effect artists that contributed to the field, most of them among the most cherished by the genre’s fans, such as Argento, Bava, and late-comer Soavi.

The film explores the methods behind the madness. For example Soavi explains he hates horror films, but is more into realistic images, so cannibals, rather than zombies, eating people is not horror, and he posits that he does not like the title of horror he is often labeled. .He interestingly comments on the comparative and real graphic images often shown on the television news.

Lamberto Bava tells how he came up with the idea for Demons (aka Demoni, 1985), comparing it to mass media: The first film takes place in a movie house where the demons come out of the projected images; in Demons 2 (aka Demoni 2… l’incubo ritorna, 1985), they come out of the even more accessible television; and in a planned but unrealized third film, it was to come out of the press.

In Italian with English subtitles, the talking parts are pretty short and jump from person to person often, though gratefully the subject’s name is presented often. It comes out a bit disjointed, but once you get the rhythm, it’s fascinating.

Mixed in with the taking heads are many shots from the films, usually the gore scenes and often with nudity, though it’s rare that any clip lasts longer than 10 seconds, and there is hardly any that have dialog.

There are two extras here, focusing in on one director each

The first is of my favorite director of the period, “Leo Fulchi, Italian Godfather of Gore.” Lasting a mere six minutes, it delves into the man rather than the movies, which is great. One of the three people discussing Fulchi (d. 1996) is his daughter, Antonella. The second short is “Mario Bava: Wizard of Fear” is slightly shorter, but again, three people describe Bava (d. 1980) and part of his process, such as his use of quick close-ups, that was copied into spaghetti westerns. The main clip they show is from Black Sunday¸ as they call it here, with the lovely Barbara Steele.  

If you’re a fan of these kinds of film, and we are legion, this is a must see. Otherwise, you might find the visuals quite shocking.

Bonus videos: