L'uomo senza memoria (1974)

... aka: Atormentada (Tormented)
... aka: Dødens puslespil (Death Puzzle)
... aka: Le trancheuse infernale (The Infernal Slicer)
... aka: Man Without a Memory
... aka: Puzzle
... aka: Rompecabeza: Hombre sin memoria (Puzzle: Man Without Memory)

Directed by:
Duccio Tessari

Eight months after having been involved in a car accident and waking up in a clinic, a young Brit (Luc Merenda, last seen in TORSO) still hasn't been able to regain his memory. A passport on his possession claims he's “Peter Smith” but a man named Philip (Manfred Freyberger) shows up at his psychiatrist's office telling him he's a friend and his name is actually “Ted Walden.” After Philip gets Peter / Ted alone, he promptly beats him up, calls him a two-bit con artist, accuses him of faking his amnesia and threatens to kill him but someone from outside the apartment shoots Phillip to death through the window. Before dying, Philip also passes along some other possibly important information, namely that Peter is 30 years old and is married to an American woman currently living in Italy. Immediately after, the doorbell rings and he receives a telegram from his wife Sara (the seriously gorgeous Senta Berger), who claims she can't wait to see him again and leaves a date and location for them to meet. Peter / Ted hides the body in a Murphy bed and then it's off to the airport.

Meanwhile in Portofino, Italy, Sara has moved on with her life best she can and is working as a swim teacher. Luca (Duilio Cruciani), a young boy who lives next door, has a massive crush on her as does an older man, Daniel Reinhart (Umberto Orsini), who works at the same sports center as Sara and seems to secretly hope she remains single for selfish reasons. After someone breaks in, chloroforms her and ransacks her home, Sara receives a telegram from Peter / Ted telling her he's about to join her. The two meet at a train station and have a lot of catching up to do. Peter / Ted doesn't really learn a whole lot from his wife. After all, the two barely even knew each other! They met in New York City, married after a week-long courtship and, soon after, went to London, where she spent most of her time alone in their hotel room while he was off doing something. That something is unknown. Sara recalls he had an interest in antiques but never even told her what line of work he was in. Edward Walden turns out to be his real name... or “Ted” if you're a friend.

According to nearly everyone who used to know Edward (including his wife), he was a “dirty rotten bastard” or a "dirty son of a double crosser" before the amnesia came into play. Now it appears he's going to have to pay for all that when his past comes back to haunt him. One of Edward's former partners-in-crime, violent and perhaps mentally imbalanced thug George (Bruno Corazzari), keeps stalking him and Sara. He was also the one who sent the initial telegraph that lured Edward there and the guy who broke in Sara's home, knocked her out and rummaged through her things. Apparently, he, Edward and Philip all owe someone a million dollars. They'd purchased heroin with the money and now the drugs are missing but the debt remains. Whoever they owe is determined to get the drugs back within a week of Edward's arrival.

After being stalked and terrorized over several days time (including Sara enduring having her dog killed and getting lit matches tossed on her), the couple decide to flee to America, but don't keep their stupid mouths shut about their plans. Not surprisingly, right before they're supposed to leave she becomes incapacitated after being hit by a car and breaking her leg in a staged “accident.” Certain incidents Edward witnesses along the way (like blood and a ceiling fan) trigger flashbacks to his past, which help to slowly reveal what happened before his car crash. Things finally start to liven up a bit at the very end, which features some fist fighting, razor slashing and bloody scenes involving a chainsaw.

This is a presentable and competently-made but nonetheless routine little mystery (or “giallo” if you will) that holds few if any real surprises and owes a huge debt of gratitude to Terence Young's Wait Until Dark (1967) in more ways than one. Considering what this is, when it was made and where it's from, I consider the lack of surprise both a positive and a negative thing; positive because many Italian thrillers from this era seemed so intent on surprise twists they'd venture into the realm of the senseless, idiotic and absurd to provide them and negative because, well, who wants to sit through an average, predictable movie? While the lack of imagination and creativity makes for a forgettable viewing experience overall, it won't exactly kill you to watch this either. Some mildly intriguing flashbacks sequences, OK production values, realistic characters and charismatic actors help put it in about the middle of the pack.

Puzzle was scripted by the extremely prolific Ernesto Gastaldi, who perhaps wrote more of these things than anyone else. Giallo regular Anita Strindberg (Lizard in a Woman's Skin) appears in just two scenes in a minor and forgettable role. Prior to this, the director co-wrote Goliath and the Vampires (1961), Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961) and numerous other peplum and spaghetti westerns; some of which he also directed. His only other genre film as director was the obscure giallo The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971). The DVD release from the Danish company Another World Entertainment comes with both English and Italian audio tracks, but no English subs for the latter.

★★

Murder obsession (Follia omicida) (1981)

... aka: Fear
... aka: Murder Obsession
... aka: Murder Syndrome
... aka: Paura
... aka: Satan's Altar
... aka: Unconscious
... aka: Wailing, The

Directed by:
"Robert Hampton" (Riccardo Freda)

Actor Michael Stanford (Stefano Patrizi) is playing a psycho in a new horror film and seems to be getting a little too into his role, actually strangling actress Beryl (Laura Gemser) until the crew intervenes and pulls him off of her. Though his co-star is slightly shaken up (though not nearly as much as she should be!), director Hans (Henri Garcin) seems happy about his convincing portrayal. While going through some old family pictures later that evening, Michael decides to go visit his estranged mother Glenda (Anita Strindberg), whom he hasn't seen in years. Flashbacks show how Michael's father William (also played by Patrizi) keeled over from a heart attack while conducting an orchestra and also reveal that Michael may have stabbed him to death as a child. Michael decides to bring along his girlfriend Debora Jordan (Silvia Dionisio) on the trip and invites part of the crew to come out later so they can discuss the film they're working on. Upon arriving to his childhood home - a dark and very gloomy mansion, naturally - the butler and estate caretaker Oliver (John Richardson) informs Michael that his mother is very sick... Indeed she is!

Glenda seems a little too close for comfort with her son, who's a dead ringer for her deceased husband. She kisses him, caresses him, lets her breast fall out of her nightgown while he hugs her and constantly gives him loving looks... and I don't mean harmless knowing glances usually shared between parents and children. Strangely, Michael introduces his girlfriend to his mother as being his secretary, presumably not to upset her, which understandably pisses Debora off. She's also not too happy that she's stuck sleeping in a bedroom alone on the other side of the house as Michael. The next day, director Hans, leading lady Beryl and assistant director Shirley (Martine Brochard) all arrive at the home. Glenda welcomes them and seems glad to have some company. Later that night everyone sits around sipping wine and discussing the supernatural. And it isn't long before people start experiencing something supernatural. The home shakes, muddy foot prints appear on the floor, doors seem to open and close on their own, lights flicker (blamed on the home's poor wiring) and Beryl is almost drown while taking a bath by a mysterious gloved assailant who seems to disappear into thin air.

During a nightmare sequence which lasts nearly ten minutes, Debora (breasts flopping out of her nightgown the entire time) is attacked by a guy with a disfigured face, runs into a web with a giant rubber spider on it, gets attacked by bats on strings, gets caught up in some tree branches and then passes out when a bunch of skulls cry blood on her. When she comes to, she's tied to a cross, gets her clothes ripped off by a mutant cultist, is forced to drink fresh chicken blood (from a real chicken they've just killed) and is attacked by the big spider, whose legs turn into fuzzy arms. Michael finally admits to having murdered his father as a child and now claims to suffer from "psycho traumatic disassociation," which involving blacking out for several minutes at a time only to awaken with no recollection of what he's done. While out in the forest, Beryl, already almost strangled by Michael on the movie set and already almost drowned in her bath just the night before, turns around and spots Michael glaring at her and holding a knife. So what does she do? Run? Scream for help? Say "What the hell is your problems?" Nope. She has sex with him (!) while Hans hides in the bushes snapping pictures.

People eventually start dropping like flies. When Michael wakes up from his encounter with Beryl, she's dead and there's a bloody knife next to them. Hans, having witnessed the murder, runs back to the house and tries to leave but someone surprises him with an axe to the head instead. Suspicious Hans left his camera behind (he never goes anywhere without it), Shirley decides to develop the film in an attic darkroom and gets decapitated with a chainsaw. After finding Shirley's head, Debora tries to run off during a rainstorm and ends up in black-gloved clutches of the killer instead. All that's left is to unveil a few skeletons in the family closet. The hopelessly muddled plot tells two conflicting stories from mother and servant and everything from adultery, blackmail, spousal abuse, sleepwalking, rape and even Satanism is trotted out in the last fifteen minutes.

Freda's film - which first saw the light of day in the U.S. under the title Fear (released on the Wizard VHS label) - is a very mediocre little mystery with Gothic trappings, slasher moments and a convoluted plot about on par with most gialli. There's nudity provided by Dionisio, Gemser and Strindberg (in one of her last film appearances) and a few poorly-done gore effects. It opens with a quote from Hieronimus A. Steinback. The music score is good and it's fairly well photographed but there's not enough style present to really overcome the script shortcomings.

Wizard recycled clips from this for their living dead-themed pastiche ZOMBIEGEDDON (1986). In 2011, Raro Video released it on DVD (using the Murder Obsession title).

★★

L'anticristo (1974)

... aka: Antichrist, The
... aka: Blasphemy
... aka: Tempter, The

Directed by:
Alberto De Martino

One of at least a dozen devil / demon / evil spirit possession films to emerge immediately after The Exorcist, this one has better production values than most, but that doesn't mean it's actually any better. In fact, it's ineffectual and often being just plain boring. At the tender age of 12, Ippolita was involved in a car crash that killed her mother and left her crippled. Now as an adult, Ippolita (short-haired Carla Gravina) is lonely, bitter and resentful. After all, she's spent a good deal of her life trying and failing to find a cure for whatever psychosomatic maladies are keeping her from walking. She also feels that God has failed to help her and has turned her back on her beliefs. Any ill feelings she felt for her wealthy father Massimo (Mel Ferrer), whose negligence led to the car crash years earlier, have manifested themselves as incestuous desires toward him that grow more intense once daddy's love will have to be split between her and his new girlfriend Gretel (Anita Strindberg). So it's safe to assume that Ippolita's one fucked-up chick. And things are about to get even worse!

A possessed man (Ernesto Colli) kills himself at a sacred site Ippolita and her father visit, resulting in the evil spirit hand picking our heroine as the perfect vessel to inhabit. After all, 400 years earlier she was a witch who was captured and burned at the stake. Symptoms manifest themselves slowly. Actually, too damn slowly. But then, Ippolita finds herself having a bizarre nightmare where her former witchy self had gone through a Satanic initiation involving getting laid out on a table nude and having a guy in a horned mask make her slurp some blood, eat a frog's head and lick a goat's... Well, no need for gory details.

Afterward, Ippolita regains her ability to walk. She uses her newfound freedom to seduce a teenage boy and twist his head around backwards then returns home to act out in all the usual possessed ways. She says lots of vulgar, degrading things, levitates, drools, pukes, makes furniture and paintings move and lights flicker and tries to seduce her own brother, Filippo (Remo Girone). During one scene, she detaches her own hand and uses it to strangle a faith healer (Mario Scaccia) her God-fearin' maid Irene (Alida Valli) brings over. Eventually, and with some help from Ippolita's bishop uncle (Arthur Kennedy), a more qualified fellow (George Coulouris) is dragged in the predictable exorcism climax where Ippy pukes, is doused with holy water and finally gets outside the home and tries to kill herself.

There's an effective score by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, nice exterior location work in Rome, very good interior art direction (including a hallway full of stone busts sticking out of the walls) and sharp and sometimes striking cinematography courtesy of Aristede Massaccesi (better known to us yanks as Joe D'Amato). What really sinks the whole thing is that there's not a single likable character to be found in the entire film. Irregardless of her situation, Ippolita is so miserable, bitchy, spoiled and self-absorbed it's impossible to warm to her. Other characters tend to be uninteresting, generic and/or underwritten. The special effects are a mixed bag too, leaning toward unimpressive, with disappointingly minor possession makeups.

Scenes were trimmed for the original U.S. theatrical release (under the title Blasphemy) as well as the VHS release (as The Tempter). The uncut DVD version was released by Anchor Bay.

★★