Third Clue: October

Clue #3:

This month's movie is based on a book and a wildly popular comic, both written by the same Italian author.

Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Oct 15th at 7:30pm, only $5!

Italian horror rapid fire list!

Some Italian horror worth noting!

Blade in the Dark: A film composer rents a secluded villa while working on a film score. He's also being stalked by a killer who may have a connection to the film he's working on....





Demons: A group of people invited to a theater to watch a movie. What they don't know is this movie features demons that will possess members of the audience. Some fantastic rubbery demon effects, over the top kills, and a rockin' 80's soundtrack! How can you go wrong?





Ghost House: A haunted house is sending out signals over ham radio which lures a couple to the house to investigate. Meanwhile an RV full of teenagers stop by the house to party. Things get genuinely creepy despite the fact that we're to believe ham radio operating is a very popular hobby amongst hip 20 somethings. This movie also features one of the creepiest clown dolls outside of Poltergeist.






Stagefright (1987): While preparing for opening night, a local theater troupe lock themselves in a theater for an all night rehearsal. Little do they know a masked murderer is locked in with them. This is a fairly straight forward slasher, except the killer has a very detailed owl mask...




Phenomena: Jennifer Connelly plays a girl who can telepathically control insects, Donald Pleasence plays an over the top professor, a score by Goblin, and directed by Dario Argento. What more could you want? What's that? You also want a monkey running around wielding a straight razor? Ok fine, just this once though.

Suspira

If ever there was a more visually striking horror movie, we have not seen it. Enormous sets pulsate with so much vivid color they seem alive in their own rite; lights cast red and blue glows from impossible sources, a forest surrounds the school grounds seemingly plucked from someone's nightmare, and don't even get us started on the score!

The plot unfolds something like this: Suzy Bannion has been accepted to a prestigious dance school, and even before she steps foot in the building, strange things start happening. A girl disappears into the night, teachers ritualistically gather at all hours, people die left and right, and nobody seem too bothered by any of it. Suzy's dorm-mate is determined to figure out what's really happening; but then she goes missing as well. That leaves Suzy to put the pieces together herself before she's consumed by mysteriousness as well.

Reasons to watch: This is one of the last films to be shot using the Technicolor process, making it as richly beautiful as it is creatively gory. The set designs were designed with the knowledge this would be shot in Technicolor and are vibrant to the point of glowing. There's some intense gore and drawn out kills. And a twist ending that doesn't make sense, but is pretty fun anyway.



Yup, that's: Jessica Harper (Phantom of the Paradise, Pennies from Heaven), and Joan Bennett (Dark Shadows).



The soundtrack: This Goblin score strays from their signature sound making this more effectively creepy, atmospheric, and largely more haunting than most of their horror scores.

Most creative kills: One of the dancers is killed by room full of razor wire. A woman is pulled through one pain of glass, and then is pushed through another. A dog abruptly, and mortally, turns on a human...

How do we really feel about this film: This film never fails to stir up our creative juices, we can't recommend it enough!

Lucio Fulci is Rated X: City of the Living Dead

This movie opens with a séance so intense the medium dies of fright. What scared her so badly? She had a vision of a priest hanging himself in the church's cemetery and consequently that opened the gates of hell. And that would be all well and good (so to speak) if the medium didn't wake up in a coffin having been burred alive two scenes later. Before you ask, this movie does takes place in the 1980s when people routinely have autopsy preformed when they die under mysterious circumstances and are embalmed before being burred. That she would awake after her burial is asking for a pretty large suspension of disbelief, even for a Fulci movie. 

But, as this is a Fulci movie, that point of contention is made up for with rich atmosphere, a looming sense of other worldly dread, a fantastic score from Fabio Frizzi, and of course, horrifying gore.

There is so much gore.

And not just the standard Fulci effects and over the top zombifications, there's also a scene where a man dies from being drilled straight through the head, there are many tears of blood, there's even a room full of maggots! So full. And those aren't the only maggots in the film.

So many maggots.

This movie is also the first in the “unofficial” Gates of Hell trilogy. The second being The Beyond and the third would be The House by the Cemetery (though that might be why it's “unofficially” a trilogy as they never talk about "the gates of hell" in House). The thin (and at time straight up goofy) plot gives this film a handicap, but it pretty well lays the foundation for how amazing The Beyond turned out. It also gives The Beyond a run for it's money in the well-that-was-a-confusing-ending department...

So confusing.

But it truly, watching this movie fully prepared for it's flaws leaves you free to more thoroughly enjoy the great elements abundant throughout the film. (There's so much gore and grossness! So much!) And you can enjoy all the grossness in restored glory, so you'll see every single maggot!

Seriously, so many maggots.


Lucio Fulci is Rated X: 

City of the Living Dead

Mon Oct 12 7:00 9:00
Tue Oct 13 7:00 9:00 

@ Trylon microcinema, tickets $8 (or snag a discount card at $25 for 5 movies!)

Clue Two: October

Clue #2

This italian horror features zombies, but it's not exactly a zombie movie...

Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! @ Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Oct 15th at 7:30pm, only $5!

Lucio Fulci is Rated X: Zombie

With the release of Zombie, Lucio Fulci entered three visual touchstones into the zombie pop-culture lexicon: the image of the zombie that graces the poster art with an eye socket full of maggots, a zombie slowly pulling a victim’s eye through a splinter of a door, and the underwater fight between a zombie and a shark. As time fades on and you forget the details of this zombie classic, you'll likely start referring to this movie as “the one with the splinter though the eye” or more commonly “the one where the zombie fights a shark”, and this begs a question: Why didn't the idea of underwater zombie ever take off?




George A. Romero ran with the underwater zombie in Land of the Dead and Max Brooks addresses the idea (as does Shock Wave apparently, though I have not yet watched it), but it's strange more modern zombie movies aren't embracing the water-mobile zombie. Possibly the idea adds too much cost to production (I imagine makeup that holds up underwater isn't cheep, nor are underwater stunt people). But what if the underwaterness was used as premise to the story rather than mere sight gags. A deserted island could easily be over run by a water logged horde, a cargo ship could pick up what they thought was a man-overboard, a shipwrecked crew could see what could perhaps appear to be their saviors slowly lumbering from the depths of the ocean...

So, I guess what I'm driving at is this: while you're enjoying Zombie and all it's quintessential contributions to the zombie cannon, fantastic gore, and makeup effects, take notes and write a screenplay that dictates the next direction in zombie horror. Why not? What else are you going to do on a Wednesday afternoon?

Lucio Fulci is Rated X:

Zombie

Mon, Oct 05, 7:00 & 9:00
Tue, Oct 06, 7:00 & 9:00

@ Trylon microcinema, tickets $8 (or snag a discount card at $25 for 5 movies!)

First Clue: October

Clue #1:


This month's movie is in one of our favorite genres: Italian Horror!

Tape Freaks Presents: Mystery Movie! Theatres at Mall of America, Thursday, Oct 15th at 7:30pm, only $5!