Pensione paura (1977)

... aka: Fear Hotel
... aka: Hotel Fear
... aka: Hotel of Fear
... aka: La violación de la señorita Julia (The Violation of Miss Julia)

Directed by:
Francesco Barilli

Set in rural Italy toward the end of World War II, this centers around a depressed, put-upon teenager named Rosa (Leonora Fani), who's helping her mother Marta (Lidia Biondi) run the family hotel and cafe. Dad is away serving in the war and may in fact be dead but, either way, he's not around. To relax and get away from her miserable daily life, Rosa rows out to a favorite spot she used to go to with her father and continues to write to him. Because of the war, food rations and money are both tight and even a casual dinner turns into a stressful situation with the electricity flickering when planes fly overhead and the whistling of dropping bombs can be heard off in the distance. Marta expects a lot from her only child but only because she cares. Not only does Rosa have to grow up fast, help run the hotel and put up with a bunch of creepy guests in the process but she also has to keep up with her studies and get a certificate so she can take care of herself in case something should happen to her mother. Almost prophetically, something does end up happening.

During a thunderstorm, Marta is heard screaming and is then found dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. Now left to her own devices, Rosa's forced to running the hotel by herself and deal with all of the perverted, leering men her mother used to shield her from. One of her many admirers is a bald, middle-aged widower (José María Prada) whose wife and kids were killed in a bombing and who now seems to get enjoyment out of finding different ways to scare Rosa. There are many other unsavory types around, including a couple of hooker sisters and their tricks, plus a shell-shocked, unpredictable servant named Alfonso. Not only that, but Rosa is also forced to take care of her mother's secret lover (Francisco Rabal); a cowardly and increasingly paranoid war criminal who's hiding out in a hidden upstairs room of the hotel.

Rosa finds herself both drawn to and repulsed by handsome but perverted and sexually aggressive gigolo Rodolfo (Luc Merenda), who's staying there with, and is being supported by, his much older lover (Jole Fierro). Rodolfo spies on Rosa changing clothes, offers to show her his manhood through a key hole, forces her to kiss him because she won't willingly do so and even promises to take her away from there in she'll only give in to him. Since his lover is running low on money herself and can no longer afford to shower him with expensive gifts and vacations, Rodolfo finds interest in his over-the-hill amour quickly waning. Instead of taking out her frustrations where they belong, il puma brands Rosa a whore, blames her for trying to seduce Rodolfo and physically assaults her. While she's busy being insecure, he's busy attempting to steal her diamonds to trade for money and a passport to run off to Switzerland and leaving her ass high and dry.

A couple of shady, dangerous thugs, who Rosa catches murdering someone in a cemetery, show up at the hotel to meet up with Rodolfo for the swap, but things don't go as planned... for pretty much anyone! In a desperate last ditch effort to cling on to her man, sugar mama pretends to be kind and motherly to Rosa just long enough to lure her into her bedroom and then helps Rodolfo rape her. Afterward, the duo are stabbed to death in their bed. Once Rosa stumbles upon their bodies, she drags them down to the basement, sticks them in a bathtub and covers the bodies with some kind of clumpy brown substance that's either mud or feces (it's difficult to tell). Things then get even more violent when the thugs come after Rosa looking for the diamonds and upon the arrival of a surprise visitor (played by Máximo Valverde) who makes quick work of all the weirdos and pervs populating the hotel with a Tommy gun.

This is not really a giallo. Just because it was filmed in Italy, has some visual style and features a few murders does not make it one. There's no real mystery component here and it certainly doesn't stick to a set formula like the majority of films it's often erroneously categorized with. Instead, this is what I like to call a “kitchen sink art film” where the director mixes up pretty much whatever he wants (surrealism, war drama, horror film, coming-of-age story, etc.) in an effort to underscore a central theme. In this case, that theme is clearly the cost of war. The world of Pensione paura is a world where the battle scars aren't just on the soldiers, but also those dealing with war on the home front. WWII has has turned pretty much every adult into a conspirator, a criminal, a psycho, a pervert, an adulterer or a murderer, who then pass all of their bullshit on to the next generation; a point hammered home by the finale.

The only glimmer of hope in this downbeat film is a subplot involving an innocent romance that develops between Fani and a sweet neighborhood boy named Guido (Francesco Impeciati), but both end up corrupted by the adult world by the film's end. Though Rosa's fate is pretty much sealed being trapped in a seedy, dangerous environment, Guido's more sheltered and “respectable” upbringing does nothing to shelter him from the ugliness of war either. His father, a priest, won't even give Rosa a credit on a dozen eggs while he himself has a feast. One could say this has nothing new to add to the conversation but as far as I'm concerned there can't be enough anti-war sentiment floating around in this world.

Even ignoring the subtext, this is well made, well acted, handsomely shot by Gualtiero Manozzi and thoroughly interesting even when taken at just face value, with the director impressively managing to navigate multiple genres in a smooth, sensible and engaging way. Well, that is until the last fifteen minutes when he opts for a preposterous, jarring, absurdist conclusion that won't set well with many viewers and gets silly enough to undercut the credibility and serious intentions of pretty much everything that came before it. Regardless, there's more than enough good going on here to merit a strong recommendation.

Pensione paura is one of those films that's difficult to pigeonhole and categorize, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good in that it typically makes for pretty interesting and unpredictable viewing. It's bad in that it often limits a film's release and commercial appeal and thus sets its on a road to obscurity. This rare title has definitely suffered from the latter and doesn't appear to have been released anywhere outside of its production countries of Italy and Spain (under the title La violación de la señorita Julia). It has yet to receive any kind of official U.S. release, though there are at least English fan subs available for the film now.

Lead actress Fani, who was in her early 20s here but still believable playing a teen, somehow ended up in some of the sleaziest Euro flicks of this time period like NAKED MASSACRE (1975), Dog Lay Afternoon (1976) and GIALLO IN VENICE (1979). In this film she's asked to get naked and be abused a lot too but at least here she's also given an interesting part to play. Pretty much the same can be said for Merenda, who also gets naked numerous times and is certainly used to much better effect here than he was in the giallo TORSO (1973). The rest of the cast is a mix of Italian and Spanish actors and almost everybody does a fine job in their respective roles. Director Barilli is best known (among giallo fans at least) for The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1973). He also co-wrote the script with Barbara Alberti and Amedeo Pagani, who'd previously collaborated on the script for the controversial The Night Porter (1974).

★★★

Stalls of Barchester, The (1971) (TV)

... aka: Ghost Story for Christmas: The Stalls of Barchester

Directed by:
Lawrence Gordon Clark

With this 45-minute offering began a series of “Ghost Story for Christmas” films that became a holiday tradition in the UK from 1971 until 1978. Each were shot on 16mm and in color, ran less than an hour (some were as short as 30 minutes) and played on BBC 1 either right before or right after Christmas. The first five of these productions, including this one, A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS (1972), LOST HEARTS (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974) and THE ASH TREE (1975) were adaptations of M.R. James ghost tales and were directed by Clark. The director followed those with THE SIGNALMAN (1976); an eerie adaptation of a Charles Dickens story, and then STIGMA (1977), an atypically bloody offering which was based on a new original script and not a classic short story. The initial series wrapped up with Derek Lister's THE ICE HOUSE (1978), which was the only one not directed by Clark and also based on an original script. In 2000, the Ghost Story for Christmas banner was revived for a four-part TV special starring Christopher Lee as James. BBC 4 would bring it back yet again in 2005, starting with Luke Watson's A View from a Hill. This one's an adaptation of the story The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, which was contained in James' second collection of stories titled More Ghost Stories, published in 1911.

In 1932, Dr. Black (Clive Swift) is brought in to catalogue the dusty library at Barchester Cathedral. The books and papers there disappoint him... that is until the librarian (Will Leighton) digs up a locked box whose contents the now-deceased former college dean refused to look at. Naturally, this strikes Dr. Black's curiosity and he insists on checking out what's inside the box inscribed “Papers of the venerable Archdeacon Haynes. Bequeathed in 1894 by his sister Leticia Haynes.” Black (who narrates the story) cracks open the box, finds a series of letters and a black book and begins reading from the latter. We're then whisked away to 1872 where the bulk of our story takes place.

With ambitions of quickly moving up the ladder and taking control, Haynes (Robert Hardy) arrives in Barchester, takes up resident with his gossipy busybody spinster sister Letitia (Thelma Barlow) and begins work as a junior deacon under 84-year-old Archdeacon Pulteney (Harold Bennett). Haynes secretly wishes the old man would kick the bucket already but next thing he knows Pulteney is still 90 and going strong. Two years later, the old deacon takes a fatal plunge down a set of slippery oak stairs. A stair rod put in for protection was suspiciously missing from the scene of the “accident” and many blamed a maid for being careless. The actual culprit was Haynes himself, who was sick of waiting for his promotion. Haynes indeed gets the title of Archbishop but it's not without a price. Not only does the maid attempt to extort money out of him but, after his sister leaves town to go stay with a cousin, he's left all alone in their large home and starts feeling like someone or something is still around. He hears voices, whispering and laughter, the sounds of bells and footsteps and senses the presence of a cat even though they don't have one. Then bizarre things happen in church, particularly at his hand-carved wooden stall...

As Dr. Black and the librarian delve further into the journal, they begin to suspect that loneliness and fatigue from long hours of work are driving the man mad, but it may also be something more sinister. After all, the wood used to build Haynes' stall came from something called “The Hanging Oak;” which had been used hundreds of year earlier to execute witches. Human bones were even found between its roots when it was cut down. Despite being a man of the cloth, Haynes ironically refuses to believe in any “superstitious foolery” and is convinced it's some psychological malady and he must stay firm. In fact, “I must stay firm” is the last thing written in his journal before his untimely and mysterious passing. He was found with his neck broken and a deep gash on his face. Did he go mad? Was he killed by a vengeance-seeking ghost? Or was this all a completely coincidental yet karmic visit from the demonic cat and hooded figure depicted on his stall?

This lays down the groundwork for the tone and feel of most of the later entries in this series. It's not as unnerving, interesting and creepy as some of the better later entries (most notably Warning and Signalman), but it's still well-acted, well-made, classy, subtle, atmospheric and ambiguous. Worth watching.

★★1/2

Empire of the Ants (1977)

… aka: Angriff der Nuklearmonster (Attack of the Nuclear Monster)
… aka: H.G. Wells' Empire of the Ants
… aka: In der Gewalt der Riesenameisen (Violence of the Giant Ants)
… aka: Killer-Termiten (Killer Termites)

Directed by:
Bert I. Gordon

After THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976) became A.I.P.'s highest-grossing film of its year, executive producer Samuel Z. Arkoff handed Gordon over some more money and proclaimed “More of the same, please!” And that's pretty much what we get here. Though this claims to be based on the 1905 H.G. Wells short story of the same name, it has almost nothing at all to do with the story. First published in 1905 in The Strand Magazine and later included in the collection The Short Stories of H.G. Wells (published in 1927), the source story takes place somewhere in South America and centers around a captain and an engineer sent to an Amazonian village to investigate reports of an ant plague and running across a new species of (slightly) larger than normal, super-intelligent, highly-evolved killer black ants. For this movie version, Gordon (who also wrote the screen story, produced and did the visual effect) kept the ant theme (though increased both the size and intelligence of them) but that was about it. This is basically a whole new tale and Wells' good name really shouldn't even be attached.

Heading this one up is none other than a slumming Joan Collins, whose career was on life support by 1977 and wouldn't be revived until her lack of warmth and likability could be correctly harnessed on TV's Dynasty in 1981. Going on record as calling this the worst experience she ever had filming a movie, Joan and the rest of the cast and crew endured filming locations swarming with fleas and mosquitoes as well as a director who was unable to get stunt people on location, which forced many of the actors to do their own stunts in bacteria-laden swamp waters. Doing such scenes ended up giving Collins a terrible infection in her legs. In later interviews, Collins stated that “Bert asked us to do things that actors usually don't do. We were hip deep in swamp water!” and concluded that she “... was never so delighted and relieved as when the last day of shooting arrived and it was finally my turn to be asphyxiated by the giant queen ant.” Regardless of all that, Collins' presence in this one is a plus if for no other reason than her bringing a glamorous and bitchy camp element (“I'm not running a charity organization!”) to a film desperately in need of it.

Marilyn Fryser (Collins), the no-nonsense president of “Dreamland Shores,” puts together a boat trip for potential buyers in hopes of wining, dining and attempting to sell off property in a future luxury resort community on a currently non-populated stretch of oceanfront swampland. It boasts a future 18 hole gold course, a future tennis club, a future beach house, a future marina, a future pool and current “fascinating wildlife,” which turns out to be more fascinating than the visitors probably imagined. With help from her assistant / lover Charlie Pearson (Edward Power), she charters a boat from unfriendly Captain Dan Stokely (Robert Lansing) and awaits her potential buyers. Most who show up, including two miserly and incredibly self-pitying elderly couples (“All we wanted was to enjoy what's left of our lives. Is that bad?”), aren't so much interested in buying property as they are a free trip, sight-seeing tour, booze and hors d'oeuvres. Actually just about all of this particular group is a bunch of duds.

Among the tag-a-longs ares are scrunchy-faced Joe Morrison (John David Carson), who's divorced, unemployed and pretty much just there to drink, friendly Margaret Ellis (Jacqueline Scott), a secretary fired from her job of 20 years who's on a limited income and outgoing Coreen Bradford (Pamela Susan Shoop), who's attempting to start a new life for herself after having been the mistress of a married doctor for years. Feeling emasculated because his father-in-law is a better provider for them than he is, scumbag Larry Graham (Robert Pine) enjoys being an ass and hitting on other women right in front of his clueless, simpering doormat of a wife Christine's (Brooke Palance, daughter of Jack) face. Actually he also seems to have no issue attempting to rape a woman about 20 feet away from not only his wife but the rest of the tour group.

As you've probably already guessed, giant ants end up spoiling everyone's picnic. Earlier, a ship's crew dumped a bunch of barrels of radioactive toxic waste into the ocean. Some of the barrels washed ashore, leaked some silver goo and the local ant population gobbled it all up, grew to enormous size and became MENSA eligible in the process. After they pick off the slower (i.e. all the old people) and dumber (i.e. the moron wife) among the group, the six survivors find a boat and decide to row two miles down river to the nearest town. Their trip is interrupted only by a few ant ambushes which leave Larry (who previously stood around and watched his wife get eaten) dead. Everyone else makes it to shore and find there way back to civilization only to realize many of the townsfolk acting somewhat strange. They soon discover some wacky slave “indoctrination” going down at the local sugar refinery.

Empire is dumb as hell, cheesy as hell and talky as hell... and yet it's slightly more enjoyable than Gordon's previous effort. While Food went pretty much right down the line as far as nature-runs-amok  / animal attack movies go and came off as bland and not even good for laughs in the process, this one at least boasts a little creativity in the final third. Of course the last 25 minutes or so are completely absurd but there's still no way you'll see it coming. This is also campier and funnier, even if all of that is completely unintentional. A few moments, like Collins' stud-for-hire trying to cheer a traumatized adult woman up by giving her a Babe Ruth bar like she's some 5-year-old, even made me laugh out loud. The attack scenes all feature shaky camera to distract from the immobility of the creatures and many also feature ant POV shots. The mock giant ants (which really don't look that bad) are combined with Gordon's usual rear project / superimposition effects of real ants, which are mostly awful but slightly better than what we saw in Food since a few border on being at least passable. Most of the characters in this one are also a bit more defined (and in a few cases, likable) than the ones in Food. I'm still going to rate the two films the same because they're both bad but not terrible. This just happens to bleep the SBIG radar more often.

None of the above really changes the fact that watching, or even re-watching, Them! (1954) or PHASE IV (1974) to get your killer ant kicks is time better spent, but sometimes we gotta take what we can get, right?

The cast also includes Albert Salmi, who manages to flub more lines than the entire rest of the cast combined in his short screen time, Jack Kosslyn (in his sixth film for the director) and Emmy-nominated TV actress Irene Tedrow. The Dana Kaproff score sounds an awful lot like John Williams' famous Jaws theme. This has received numerous VHS and DVD releases over the years and made its Blu-ray debut in 2015 courtesy of Scream Factory. It's rated PG.

★1/2