La polizia brancola nel buio (1975)

... aka: Il giardino delle lattughe (The Lettuce Garden)

... aka: Police Are Blundering in the Dark, The

Directed by:

"Helia Colombo" (Elio Palumbo)

When I'm preparing to review a movie I usually put in a tiny bit of research prior to hitting play. Nothing like plot spoilers or anything to that effect, but more just getting a basic idea of the cast, crew, release date, some website scores, etc. And let me tell you, this particular title may as well have been holding up a giant, flashing neon sign reading "I'm going to suck!" The amount of red flags here was absolutely insane. First and foremost, this was completed in 1972, right smack in the middle of the theatrical heyday of giallo in European cinema, yet no one bothered to release it until three years later. So why didn't they capitalize on a hot short-term trend while it was still big? Second, when this was finally released it was re-titled to steer audiences away from thinking it was a horror-mystery and instead more of a police / crime movie. It's not that the two didn't usually overlap anyway, but there are still some major distinctions that can be drawn and this intentionally chose to blur those lines with a marketing misdirection.

I should point out that this is far from a cop / crime / poliziotteschi movie; further away, in fact, than most other gialli. The "police" of the new title don't even factor into the plot in a significant way and only show up during the last few minutes. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I still have no clue how anyone could think watching a bunch of detectives sitting at desks rehashing the very things we the viewers have already seen for ourselves minutes earlier is anything but boring.

There are many luminaries who worked in this subgenre at the time, both behind and in front of the camera, and on both big and low budget productions. None of them were involved with this. The first time director / writer (more on him later) opted to use a pseudonym and never made another film. The producer, and the attached production company, never made another film. Gialli are renowned for their cinematography and scores above all else, and this was shot by an unknown and features a score from another one-time composer. Were these real people or is everyone listed in the crew using a fake name? Good movies can certainly be made by virtual unknowns but those people would have absolutely zero incentive to hide their identities if they were proud of the work they were putting out.

The backers of these films frequently shelled out at least a little money to attract a name star or two who'd help them sell the film to an international audience. Nope, none of that here! In fact, the four top-billed male lead actors are complete unknowns who never appeared in another film again, at least not using the names they used here. There are a couple of female cast members that did other things, but even these ladies are going to be alien faces to everyone out there who's not a very dedicated exploitation fan. The only person I was somewhat familiar with was Halina Zalewska, who had previously appeared in the Barbara Steele vehicles THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964) and AN ANGEL FOR SATAN (1966).

Jump ahead a decade to the VHS boom. No one wanted to release this. Jump ahead a few more decades to the DVD boom, when there was a big resurgence in the popularity of these kind of films, and still no one wanted to release this. It wouldn't be until 2020 that this finally surfaced on Blu-ray as part of Vinegar Syndrome's "Forgotten Gialli" line.

Taking a glance at viewer scores on film websites is yet another warning. Gialli fans are far more forgiving than I when it comes to their beloved subgenre and if even they are rejecting this, there must be something amiss. Another clue is that gialli fans are quick to remove the horror tag from these movies on various websites and instead assign the (they believe) classier designation of "thriller" to them instead, yet they've let the horror tag remain on this one. It's like they're saying, "OK, this one's so terrible that even WE don't want to claim it!" 

That all gives me bad flashbacks to the IMDb board days when we had a seemingly endless fight on the main boards about whether Jaws should receive a horror genre classification or not. It was there from the start, then it was stripped away, then it was reinstated, then it was removed again... Over and over and over again it went. The mods were annoyed. We had a lengthy debate about it. For those of us who were pro horror tag, our points of debate centered around the movie being called a horror film by its very own director, it being advertised as "the most terrifying motion picture..." and "the movie that scared millions out of the water...", how it was heavily influenced by older monster movies that no one debates are horror films, how it had recurring suspense builds where the entire payoff was delivered in the form of a jump scare and how its chief objective was to try to scare / terrify the audience, which is precisely what it did when it hit theaters in 1975. Also, ya know, that part about it revolving around a giant, monstrous man-eating shark terrorizing an entire community, ripping off limbs, devouring skinny dippers and little kids whole and all that.

Well, long story short, we ended up losing the battle and the mods permanently locked down Jaws as an "action / mystery / thriller" instead, which is how it remains to this very day. The truly interesting part of all of this is that none of the pretentious snobs who thought it was too good to be horror ever once advocated for similar treatment for any of the sequels. Despite containing almost identical content, right down to the same characters, plot points, etc., the follow-ups were apparently mid or bad enough that it was OK to still consider them horror.

Beginning as any good film in this subgenre must begin, an attractive young woman with her breasts exposed gets carved up by some unknown black clad psycho armed with a large pair of scissors. Well, I shouldn't really say completely unknown. As he thrusts his murder weapon of choice forward, his face enters the frame to reveal it's an older gentleman wearing glasses and with unkempt pork chop sideburns, which may have taken the mystery completely out of this mystery in just the first couple of minutes. A newspaper article then informs us that the victim is one of four photo models who've recently disappeared, adding "la polizia brancola nel buio!"

A roster of suspects and victims is then established, and they turn out to be an unsavory, unlikable crew of weirdos, depressives and degenerates. There's Edmundo Parisi, the rich, eccentric, chain-smoking, wheelchair-bound, afro-sporting nudie photographer (!) and his always-miserable-looking wife Eleanor (Zalewska), who's grown angry and bitter at both her isolation in the country and her self-serving husband's arrogance and impotence. They share their secluded villa with Parisi's orphaned teenage niece and understudy, Sarah (Elena Veronese), as well as young porter Alberto and "erotomania"-suffering maid Lucia (Gabriela Giorgi), who both seem to be up to something sketchy. Local physician Dr. Dalla is another frequent presence in the home.

Our hero is the classy Giorgio D'Amato (Joseph Arkim), who is first seen refusing to pick his poor girlfriend up after her car breaks down because he's lying in bed with the naked brunette he's cheating on her with when she calls. The girlfriend, Enrichetta (Margaret Rose Keil), is then forced to spend the night in a creepy old inn, where she gets felt up by the owner's half-wit son after stripping out of her clothes by the fireplace. She then just decides to leave her clothes off and walks around her room, takes off her make-up and eats a ham sandwich while topless before someone sneaks in and stabs her through the throat and tit. When Giorgio shows up the following day, the crime scene has been cleaned up and she's nowhere to be found, which sends him on a quest to discover what happened to her.

Thankfully, Giorgio's an independent journalist by day, so being a snoop is like second nature to him.  After locating his former girlfriend's car and scheduling book, he's able to track her previous known location to the villa where she was doing a modeling assignment for Edmundo. Unfortunately, chasing after tail is his first nature and he seems to forget why he's even there approximately five minutes after arriving. It takes him no time at all to charm his way into the troubled families home as a guest. It then takes him no time at all to charm the panties right off the teenage niece. And leave it to an Italian giallo to expect us to cheer on a "hero" who inadvertently killed his own girlfriend because he was too busy cheating of her and then cheated on her again while in the process of trying to find her. Hell it would have been two more times had the jealous butler not been interrupted when he was with the nympho maid.

Sordid family secrets in the Parisi household are soon revealed. The niece lives in fear of both of her guardians and claims that her uncle is insane, cruel and controlling while her aunt has been using her as a sexual plaything since hubby can no longer perform. Being the kind and nurturing type that he is, Giorgio responds to the poor girl's teary-eyed confession of abuse and rape by immediately stripping off her dress, lying her down in bed and then double checking to make sure her hymen is still intact since it was only her female guardian who'd been raping her and not the male. Once she passes his purity test, he then feels free to take her virginity.

A completely weird plot point is thrown out toward the end when Sarah reveals that her uncle has invented a brand new style of photography that allows him to take images of people's thoughts (?!) He hides his little contraption inside a bronze Buddha looking statue, uses it secretly take photos of everyone and then sits around in a hidden control room all bug eyed, laughing maniacally as he looks over the results. What's even stranger is that this absurd idea is not even exploited in any kind of fun or novel way nor is it even used to uncover the killer. It's just kind of there. For no discernable reason. As for the big killer reveal, it turns out NOT to be the same guy whose head accidentally entered into frame in the opening scene, which makes me realize that either the filmmakers didn't think anyone would notice or simply didn't care if anyone noticed. Ahhh, meticulous filmmaking at its finest!

Going in assuming this was going to be terrible actually resulted in it exceeding my expectations in its own shitty little way. While it's true this is a bad movie, it's no less entertaining than your average film in this subgenre. It's as sleazy as other gialli from the same time and filled with lots of great 70s fashions (crazy suits, miniskirts, wigs and go go boots galore), cars and home décor. It's dumb, yet it's no dumber than, say, THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS or STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER; two films many devotees seem to love. It's also kind of boring at times yet not as boring as some others, like KNIFE OF ICE or NIGHT OF THE SCORPION. And, while it's not very stylish or visually creative, the photography and score aren't noticeably bad either. So hooray for low expectations coming through, and getting me through, once again!

As for the director's true identity, it was later revealed to be Elio Palumbo. Though not a known entity here in the U.S., Palumbo was a very successful platinum-selling artist / composer, record executive and music producer in Europe in the 1970s and 80s.

★1/2

Las Vegas Serial Killer, The (1986)

... aka: Hollywood Strangler in Las Vegas, The

Directed by:

"Wolfgang Schmidt" (Ray Dennis Steckler)

Alright out there, a show of hands: Who asked for a sequel to THE HOLLYWOOD STRANGLER MEETS THE SKID ROW SLASHER?

Instead of being financed entirely by Steckler, this follow-up was bankrolled by John Golff and Salvatore Richichi of Camp Video, who had some minor success on the home video market in the mid to late 80s. Not content with just releasing other people's films, Camp also made some of their own in-house productions to expand their catalogue of titles. Those included the shot-on-video Death Row Diner (1988), VIDEO VIOLENCE (1987) and VIDEO VIOLENCE PART 2 (1988), ZOMBIE DEATH HOUSE (1988; the first and only directorial effort for actor John Saxon and easily CV's largest budgeted production) and, their most famous project by far, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988). However, Camp ceased production on new films after only a few years and the company itself petered out soon after. It may or may not have had something to do with the fact Richichi was the son of Natale "Big Chris" Richichi; a reputed "capo" in New York's Gambino crime family and a one-time confidant of John Gotti. Richichi Sr. ended up in prison for extortion and racketeering charges and died behind bars in 2001. As for whether any mob money was funneled into this company or not, well, let's just say, stranger things have happened.

Steckler's association with Camp Video began the same year the company was formed. It was the first distributor to release his earlier films The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1963), The Thrill Killers (1964) and Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1965; re-titled The Adventures of Rat Pfink and Boo-Boo) on home video. There may have been some kind of contract between Steckler and the company; say he gave them release rights to a few of his films in exchange for the funds to make another movie, but that's all conjecture on my part.

After killing seven young women in the previous film (it was actually ten, but who's counting?), the Nevada parole board and two court appointed psychiatrists have decided to release Johnathon Klick (Pierre Agostino) from prison after serving just six years. What could possibly go wrong there? As for their reasoning, well, since only one corpse was ever found, the shrinks came to the conclusion he was just making up the other murders to increase his notoriety (??) This also, of course, completely discounts the finale of Hollywood Strangler where the Skid Row Slasher repeatedly stabbed him with her switchblade and he fell over dead in front of a Deep Throat poster. But, ya know, unnecessary sequels and incongruity go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Apparently Nevada correctional facilities in the 80s just bounced prisoners with zero money, help or even transportation after they're set free because Johnathon is next seen simply heading down the road by foot outside the jail. He finally makes it to Vegas, and just in time to see Miss World Burlesque 1980 Toni Alessandrini perform a slow motion strip routine covered in glitter and showing ample T&A. Alessandrini became somewhat known in the 80s and early 90s for her appearance in the Tom Hanks comedy Bachelor Party and roles in some Rick Sloane B movies that were on cable all the time but, before all that, she'd appeared in a number of Steckler's Vegas-shot hardcore films, usually using the alias "Toni Reenee."

Arriving on the Vegas strip at around the same time as Johnathon are a couple of low grade hoods named Clarence (Ron Jason) and Jack (Chris Cave), who are there simply to rob people and scope out "broads." When they aren't snatching purses and such, they're critiquing the bodies of female passersby. Seeing how Steckler clearly just filmed random people walking around without their knowledge, the fact many of the voice-overs insult some of these people is in hilariously terrible taste. Women who are short ("Bad legs, bad legs"), slightly pudgy ("They waddle like a duck... Quack! Quack!") or old are all immediately dismissed. Apparently these two idiots only like to steal from chicks they find hot.

Johnathon crashes a "highly publicized" nighttime pool / birthday party for "Las Vegas film star Cash Flagg" (!!!), pulls one of the girls (Glenda Savage) into the bushes, rips off her bikini top and then uses it to strangle her to death. His next victim is a hooker, who he kills in an alley after she tells him her going rate. To make ends meet, he gets a job as a delivery man at a pizza parlor, which has a framed poster for the "Cash Flagg" movie Incredibly Strange Creatures on the wall. The two thieves frequent the joint and end up crossing paths with the strangler numerous other times.

While making a pizza delivery, Jonathan is greeted at the door by a large-breasted blonde in a bikini, who coerces him to her back patio, takes off her top, hops in the Jacuzzi and propositions him (yeah right), but she's saved when her friends arrive to eat. After the thieves knock an old man out and lock his much-younger secretary / mistress in the trunk of their Mercedes so they can steal a briefcase full of cash, Johnathan happens upon the scene, opens the trunk, strangles the woman to death and then just re-shuts the lid and walks off (!) Because the old man only saw the thieves at the scene and has provided a description to the police, Clarence and Jack are blamed for the murder.

We're next off to a mansion for a swimsuit / lingerie photo session with models Suzee (CHOPPING MALL's Suzee Slater), Joanie (Joan Ruedelstein aka adult actress Jeannie Pepper), Maria and Deborah. Johnathon sneaks in, manages to get Suzee and Deborah alone long enough to strangle them and then steals a camera. This scene really stands out from the rest. No, not because it's any good, but because it's photographed better (for some reason they used 35mm just for this one scene), was actually shot with sync sound and was filmed in the Hollywood Hills instead of Vegas. Johnathan then kills another hooker, uses his whole photographer shtick to murder another lady and then sets his sights on "stripper" Kat Carson (Kathryn Downey), who he's been stalking around town. He becomes a frequent visitor to the club where she (horribly!) dances in a one piece blue swimsuit that never comes off and may or may not eventually strangle her to death next to a stuffed Papa Smurf doll. I'll never tell!

With the exception of the modeling scene, this was shot on 16mm without sound, so nearly all of the dialogue, which is poorly recorded and incredibly insipid ("Die garbage!") was dubbed in later. Just like the original, this has the laughable premise that lots of young twenty-somethings are going to be throwing themselves at the near-elderly Johnathon. Just like the original, this has next to no plot to speak of (co-star Jason said there wasn't even a script). Furthermore, replacing the female serial killer character with two petty thieves just isn't as interesting. Some footage has been recycled from the first film and it also re-uses a lot of the same music.

The real deal breaker here, and what turns this all into an incredibly boring viewing experience, is the relentless time padding. We get endless shots of people walking around (many of whom look directly at the camera and are probably thinking, "Why in the hell is this man filming me?"), shots of various buildings, cars driving, the famous Vegas lights and whatever else happened to catch RDS's eye when he was making this. We get several minutes of footage from the "El Dorado Parade" where the camera focuses on clowns, Indians, an old car and a flag while a female voice-over goes "Oh look at the clowns!" "Oh look at the Indians!" "Oh look at the old car!" "Oh there's the flag. Salute the flag!" We also get footage from an airplane show, a rodeo, casinos and plenty of other useless filler. At this point in the game it appeared that Steckler would do, and shoot, just about ANYTHING to keep from having to actually write a script!

After the Camp video release, this was given several DVD releases. It was distributed by both Media Blasters and Guilty Pleasures; the latter including it on their 4 film "Midnight Movies II" set along with Steckler's Body Fever, Blood Shack and Hollywood Strangler. Later this year, it will be re-released by Severin as part of a massive RDS box set including 19 other films of his.

★