Italian Horror Blogathon: Links

Use the comments section of this post to link to your entries; I will then update the best I can throughout the day. However, the full update will show up each morning around 7 (Pacific), so if you send me your link and don't see it up here right away, it probably just means I'm at work. So, check this post throughout the blogathon for all of the latest links. I'm excited to get this thing started and read people's submissions. My own contributions will go up on the blog at the same time as the...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Opera (aka Terror at the Opera)

Dario Argento’s Opera is aptly titled. Operatic in its aesthetics, this is the Italian maestro’s most gruesomely violent aria. A swan song of sorts for an aging diva; a final showcase for a once great entertainer (with hindsight we say this) to remind us one last time just why we rushed out to see whatever their name was attached to. This is Argento at his most gloriously indulgent; visually and aurally throughout, the viewer is bombarded with an excessiveness that can only be compared to...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (aka La dama rossa uccide sette volte, Blood Feast)

The previous two years I’ve done this blogathon I’ve always wanted to make sure that I had time to see something that I haven’t seen or heard of before. The first year I did this blogathon it was Pupi Avati’s The House with the Laughing Windows; the second year it was Francesco Barilli’s The Perfume of the Lady in Black. This year I wanted to make sure I had time for Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. Boy, am I glad I made time for this gem. Miraglia’s film is a masterpiece...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Aenigma

To watch a Lucio Fulci film post-1981 is to see a film by a once visionary genre director totally devoid of effort or care. It is with much sadness that I write this review for the Italian horror blogathon. I always try to get in one film from a major contributor to the subgenre that I haven’t seen, and this year I picked a late(r) era Fulci. Aenigma is the most clichéd kind of Euro-horror flick: shamelessly ripping off other movies (most blatantly Carrie and Patrick), straining to appeal...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Anthropophagus (aka Antropophagus, Anthropophagous: The Beast, The Grim Reaper, Man Eater, The Savage Island)

Directed by the infamous Aristide Massaccesi (better known as Joe D’Amato, which is the name I will refer to throughout the rest of this piece) and containing a gleefully maniacal performance from Luigi Montefiori (better known as George Eastman; again, the name I will use throughout this piece), Anthropophagus is one of the most notorious Italian horror films. Unfortunately, it’s not very good. When one sees “Directed by Joe D’Amato” at the beginning of the film, the expectations drop,...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Contamination (aka Alien Contamination, Contamination: Alien on Earth, Toxic Spawn)

One of the more entertaining and endearing aspects of Italian genre cinema is its proclivity for piggy-backing off of the successes of better films. They would do this by either doing a straight copy of the film or by using their titles to suggest that their film is a sequel to the more successful American film. Whether it was Fulci claiming his Zombi 2 was a sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead; Great White being nothing more than a Jaws rip-off; Beyond the Door as the Italian version of...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: A Blade in the Dark (aka La casa con la scala nel buio)

After working as an assistant on Dario Argento’s Tenebre, Lamberto Bava (Mario’s son) made this boring giallo/slasher hybrid, A Blade in the Dark. Unlike his debut film, Macabre, Bava the younger doesn’t show much in terms of originality, here, as he seems too content just making a lower-rent copy of the film he just left the set of. Bava gives us a film that essentially shows us that he paid enough attention as Argento’s AD to make a serviceable film that looks and feels like someone doing...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Seven Bloodstained Orchids (aka Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso, Puzzle of the Silver Half Moons)

Before he made his infamous cannibal films The Man from Deep River, Eaten Alive, and Cannibal Ferox, Umberto Lenzi was more known for his gialli. A Euro-Horror cult figure known more for the aforementioned cannibal films and for his wacky atomic zombie flick Nightmare City, Lenzi was actually pretty adept at the classic giallo film, and one of his best and most competent film is 1972’s Seven Bloodstained Orchids. Considered a lesser giallo by some, Lenzi’s film is one of the better entries...

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Italian Horror Blogathon: Blood and Black Lace (aka Sei donne per l'assassino, Six Women for the Murderer, Fashion House of Death)

A painter and cinematographer turned director, a craftsman turned celluloid dreamer, an industry veteran who created, almost single-handedly, the uniquely Italian genre of baroque horror known as “giallo,” he directed the most graceful and deliriously mad horror films of the 1960s and early 1970s. Always better at imagery than explanation, at set piece than story, Bava’s films are at their best dream worlds and nightmare visions. Check your logic at the door        ...

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Italian Horror Blogathon is tomorrow!

We're just one day away from a third year of Italian horror goodness. I'll put up a post tomorrow around 7am Pacific for you all to comment on with links to your posts. I'll keep the links post at the top of the page every day and update it every morning at 7. My own posts will be going up at the same time and are going to be underneath the links post. If you're wanting to still contribute something, it's not too late. Here are the details. I'm really looking forward to this year's entries....

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Italian Horror: A Primer

Now that I’m on my third year of hosting this-here blogathon, I figured now would be as good a time as any to write up a proper introduction to the subgenre I love so much. I have invited many people to participate in this humble project the last couple of years, and one of the things I love hearing most is that people were introduce to Italian horror through this blogathon. I hear quite often that people were always apprehensive to try out Italian horror because they knew so little about it...

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Blog Announcement

I know I have more banners to use than the one above (which I already used in my initial announcement of the blogathon and have on the side of my blog), but I just can't get enough of those crazy Bruno Mattei zombies from Virus. Anyway, I figured I should let you all know that posting will be slowing down -- if not completely stopped -- in prep for the Italian Horror Blogathon coming up in a couple of weeks. When October is over, I will resume the Pollack retrospective (covering the second...

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The Office: #22 -- "The Surplus"

22) The Surplus Season 5, Episode 10 Every Thursday during the final season of The Office, I'll be counting down the best episodes of the series' previous eight seasons. Follow me on Twitter @StiglitzMovies to see my thoughts on the ninth and final season. Below are links to previous entries in this retrospective. Intro 50-25 24 - "The Deposition" 23 - "A Benihana Christmas" Pre-Title Sequence: In the cold open – which ties in with the A-story –Oscar tries to...

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Announcing the 3rd Annual Italian Horror Blogathon

The Italian Horror Blogathon returns! Many people have helped in making this a success in the past. I hope you'll all return this year. As you may know, I have no set criteria for what you need to write about. It could be a film about cannibals, zombies, or black-gloved killers. Some people like to focus on the giallo and the films of the ‘60s and ’70s – specifically Bava, Martino, Deodato, and Argento; while others prefer the ‘80s/early '90s era of Italian horror focusing on films by the...

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Sydney Pollack: Absence of Malice

Pollack described how he came to make Absence of Malice as a “screenplay my agents gave me; it’s as simple as that.” This kind of rare, personal detachment from the project is evident throughout the film and makes for one of the most painful viewing experiences of Pollack’s oeuvre. Oh, not because the movie is bad or even boring, there’s just something missing here (I think it’s primarily conviction and energy in its subject matter) that makes it quite the lacking experience when held...

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