Unseen Terror 2024: I Went to Italy Last Year (Days 26-28)

Did I mention that I went to (most of) Italy last year? If I did not, it’s because I’m relatively quiet on most social media sites. I swear I will upload the photos and videos from the whole trip sooner than later. Anyways, why am I mentioning this? Well, when we visited Rome, I was lucky enough to strongarm several family members into visiting “Profondo Rosso,” which is a hidden gem of a memorabilia store owned by famed Italian director Dario Argento. It’s an extremely cool place to peruse if you’re even remotely into horror, science fiction, or just popular culture that’s a bit too “odd” for most people. Plus, the basement contains a number of props from Argento’s pictures! Anyways, I just wanted to gush for a bit before we talk about a few films that I’ve never seen until this year (all of which hail from, well, Italy).

 

Inferno is a thematic and spiritual successor to Dario’s breakthrough masterpiece Suspiria, and it seems to have always been stuck in a weird spot between that flick and 1982’s impressive bloodbath known as Tenebre. It is the second installment in what the director has dubbed his “Three Mothers” trilogy (1977’s Suspiria is the first, 2007’s Mother of Tears is the third). Each one deals with a titular “mother” determined to rule the world while using powerful dark magic to eliminate anyone who would stand in their way. The plot has us following several characters, two of whom have taken interest in a strange book titled The Three Mothers, which tells of three evil sisters who would conquer all with sadness, tears, and darkness. When one of the main characters goes missing, their brother comes to New York City to investigate. That is about the easiest way to describe the plot to Inferno, because while I did find it to be an overall very enjoyable watch, it is a messier product than most of Argento’s other works from the 1970s and beyond. There is a strong insistence on killing newly introduced characters WAY too quickly (including longtime Argento collaborator Daria Nicolodi), and the final act feels a bit silly in spots. Still, much like most releases in the giallo genre, it is a beautiful film to look at and has style oozing out of every pore. There are some legitimately spooky moments throughout (in particular, an underwater swimming scene that I suspect must have been incredibly stressful to film) and some expectedly wicked and dastardly kills that while not as extravagant as those seen in the likes of Tenebre, Opera, or Deep Red, are still quite the sight to behold (cat lovers beware of one scene though). Surprisingly, longtime Argento collaborators and music composers Goblin are absent from Inferno’s soundtrack, with the director choosing noteworthy progressive rock musician Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer) to compose the score. Reportedly, he wanted something different this time around so as to keep this feeling separate from Suspiria. I must admit that the bombastic and proto-symphonic metal “Mater Tenebrarum” is undeniably AWESOME, but the rest of the score is a real mixed bag or too chaotic for something that’s considerably toned down compared to this director’s other efforts.

 

It's far from Dario Argento’s best work, but despite it being a bit messy, Inferno is still a wonderfully weird 80s gem that should do quite well with fans of more supernatural-based horror flicks and with those looking to get into horror pictures from across the pond. I don’t plan on finishing the “Three Mothers” trilogy this year, but perhaps it could make the list next time. Unless we’re all dead by this time next year. That’s always a possibility.

 

 

 

 

 

When it comes to expressing my feelings on 1981’s Italian exploitation flick Cannibal Ferox (known as Make Them Die Slowly in the west), I feel as though Google Translate is the best way to sum it up: “Se ti rende felice, allora sono felice per te.” Nearly every time I’ve been recommended adding a picture from the “cannibal” subgenre of horror to my queue and/or Unseen Terror rough drafts, it usually results in massive disappointment, if not outright frustration. Occasionally I’ll discover a pleasant surprise such as Ravenous or Bone Tomahawk (though the latter’s classification is tenuous at best), but usually it matters not if your project is grimy or glossy; I just don’t vibe with them. I was hoping that perhaps in the wake of the genre’s most notorious release (the prior year’s infamous Cannibal Holocaust), rival filmmakers would have some sense of morality and try not to repeat some of the ghastly acts from years prior. I was an idiot to think such a thing would happen.

 

While a lot more straightforward than director Ruggero Deodado’s Cannibal Holocaust, writer/director Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox is also pretty icky in its own right, but also just flatout badly made. For all of the disdain I have for Deodado’s flick, I’ll give it credit for being a better structured picture as a whole and helping to introduce the concept of “found footage” to the general public before most other movies did decades later. Ferox though? Well, its plot is significantly less interesting (a very dumb skeptic drags two friends with her to Colombia to prove that cannibalism is a myth. Things don’t go well) and it has these extremely jarring and quite frankly irritating cuts back to the states while our “heroes” are in peril on another continent. It disrupts the mood and forces you to also watch some horribly sexist and violent scenes towards women. When we’re back to Colombia, we bear witness to something that Ferox has in common with Holocaust, which is a bunch of real, on-screen animal killings. I have now seen two films with live turtle dismemberment, and that is two films too many. I know I might sound like a hypocrite considering that I am an omnivore but filming real animal mauling and killings for the sake of making your movie feel more “intense” or for “art” is scummy behavior. Hell, supporting actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice refused to participate in the killing of a wild pig on camera (with them using a double to complete the scene) and went on record expressing his disgust for even being in the flick itself. There’s also extraordinarily poor dubbing (not completely uncommon in Italian horror), but it is unbelievably bad here. If you were to take a shot for how many times someone calls a woman a “twat,” you would be dead before the halfway mark. Still, I suppose I CAN give Cannibal Ferox credit for two particularly good things: it has a shockingly good score (more pulsating and groovier than the moody, eerie one heard in Cannibal Holocaust), and the special effects & gore are solid. Still, two rights do not make up for several wrongs, and when your wrongs just feel so repugnant, I can’t fully recommend your movie to anyone other than a very niche audience. I don’t expect to be revisiting this one again unless I’m paid to.

 

 

I’ve been meaning to get more into the cinematic works of famed Italian maestro Mario Bava for quite some time. While I’ve only ever seen Black Sunday and Black Sabbath, both of those are quite grand and when I heard that his 1964 effort Blood and Black Lace is one of the earliest entries in the giallo genre (this + Bava’s prior effort The Girl Who Knew Too Much are considered to be the first two flicks in the genre as a whole), I knew I had to watch it before I leave this mortal coil. Besides, after the taste that Cannibal Ferox left in my mouth, something had to be done.

 

The plot concerns a series of brutal murders of a fashion house’s beauty models, all of whom seem to be the victim of a masked killer in search of a diary that contains unknown details and personal stories that the staff most likely don’t want revealed to the public. Mind you, that isn’t giving anything away about Blood and Black Lace’s overall story, but the picture goes into enough weird directions and feels slightly overstuffed with characters that I feel like it’s about as simple of a one that I could come up with. If I could describe this film in two simple words, it would be “visually sinister.” I’m always in amazement with what these kinds of movies back in the day could do with color palettes, as even with a more grounded and far less supernatural-based story, the contrast in visual tones makes the world in which this is set in feel otherworldly. How is it that directors from overseas manage to make you wonder how you see the color red so differently than you’ve seen in your entire life? What I’m trying to say is that Blood and Black Lace, despite being quite an old release, looks beautiful and better than a lot of bigger budget horror releases dumped into theaters by the likes of, say, Blumhouse. It’s also a decidedly nefarious flick; it obviously lacks the over-the-top imagery of future Italian horror filmmakers such as Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, but this is still one hell of a mean movie. I felt so terrible for the actresses here, as their characters are just dealt the kind of punishment that I’m almost certain inspired future Western filmmakers in the genre and could make some 80s slashers take notes. Even in its quiet moments, Bava can instill a sense of dread in the viewer that leaves you morbidly curious for what could come about next. It’s so good that it almost makes you forget the strangely anticlimactic twist in its third act and how awkward some of the dubbing is (I’d personally love to track this down in its native language). Still, those are minor complaints about what I think is otherwise a solid movie.

 

 

If you have an appreciation for the genre and wish to expand your horizons in horror, give Blood and Black Lace a watch. There’s a reason why so many filmmakers (including Martin Scorsese!) have cited it as one of their absolute favorite pieces of cinema, with some even going so far as to pay homage to it in their own films. I don’t normally encourage this but pour yourself a glass of something classy like wine or McDonald’s Sprite and enjoy the ride. And if you find yourself in Rome, go hit up "Profondo Rosso." Tell them Ryan sent you. They don't know me, but it'll help boost my morale.

The Green Inferno (2015) Movie Review

College freshman Jessica, the daughter of a lawyer with ties to the United Nations, joins a group of young, likeminded social activists, lead by the passionate and outspoken Alejandro. Soon, the gathering of campus students will partake in their next mission, wherein they hope to save the Amazon rainforest from logging and deforestation, with the plans involving to film their protests and upload it to social media and news sites around the globe. Upon arriving, they initially succeed, though not without unexpected scares, which put a select few in danger at the risk of achieving internet fame. However, when things go horrifically awry on a return flight back to the United States, the radicals find themselves at the mercy of one of the Amazon's native tribes.

This may be the most obvious statement of the year, and hell, maybe even out of anything that I've ever typed for this little blog, but the subgenre of horror cinema known as "cannibal films" is certainly not for everyone. More often than not, they aim to disturb rather than entertain, telling you that the greatest fears and terrors that we can encounter in what years we have left on this planet will come from the living rather than the deceased or the supernatural. They're gruesome, vile reminders of some of the darker sides of humanity, and can occasionally make you question whether the ones committing these murders are truly awful and rotten to the core, or if we are the ones instigating and bringing about these actions from a group of unknown and undiscovered "savages."

When I had first heard that director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) was going to pay homage to his love for these little ditties (this flick takes its name from an original title that was planned for Rugerro Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust), I admittedly raised a very curious eyebrow. I'll be the first to tell you that I've never been the biggest fan of his previous efforts, enjoying pieces of his movies rather than the entirety of them, but I don't dislike the guy whatsoever. There's always been a certain aura to him that does give off the impression that he's a pretty cool guy, or at the very least, is someone that you could geek out with for an impressive amount of time. The fact that this would be his first time sitting down to direct a full length horror film in six years made me wonder if he had grown as a filmmaker, and I was fully on board.


That was in 2013. Two years have since passed, and I was fully convinced that this would never see the light of day. At the very least, I was hoping for a extremely limited release through "on-demand" services. As luck would have it (and talk about good timing since my own yearly Halloween horror blog-o-thon is coming soon), fifteen hundred screens across the country were lucky enough to have The Green Inferno, even if it was to only be for a short period of time.


Anyway, enough backstory and plodding nonsense. To the number of you reading this, you're just asking two questions: is it worth the wait? Is it any good? Well....sure.


For starters, and just to get the negatives out of the way, I'll just say that one of my biggest pet peeves of Eli Roth's has always been his dialogue. I'm sure that this is meant to depict the way that teenagers and young adults usually converse with one another, but it nearly mimics the likes of his very good friend Quentin Tarantino, though it's lacking any of the real memorable moments of odd comedy or poignancy that the former possesses. More inexperienced or relaxed moviegoers may be able to stomach it a tad easier than someone like me, but after some time has passed (most of Green Inferno's meat and potatoes doesn't get going until around the forty five minute mark), there's a strong chance that you won't notice it since you're fairy engrossed by the events going on. The two women in charge of casting (Kelly Wagner and Dominika Posseren), whose previous works include Crank: High Voltage and The Devil's Rejects, deserve just as much praise as anyone that I'll discuss below. Given that The Green Inferno doesn't exactly possess an oscar-worthy script, the young actors and actresses chosen for the picture by these two are pretty darn good, especially lead actress (and Roth's own missus) Lorenza Izzo. See Rob Zombie? You CAN cast your significant other as the lead in a darker horror film and have them give a good performance. She's got a certain charm that reminded me of some of the greater scream queens of yesteryear, looking genuinely frightened by all of the maiming and terrible situations that she has found herself in. I know that she has a supporting role in the upcoming Knock Knock, which also has her husband in the director's chair, and it makes me happy that we'll be seeing more of her in the future, though hopefully without the fear of genital mutilation that Inferno seems to torture her with.


And oh my goodness gracious, the mutilation. When I caught The Green Inferno at my local theater, there were scenes of violence depicted in here that elicited legitimate "Oh fuck"s from the crowd, and during one sequence where one of the most relatable characters is brutally dismembered and devoured, I caught a glimpse of one young adult turning the tope of their hoodie down over their eyes, so as to hide their discomfort. True, more seasoned veterans will tell you that "this is nothing" compared to obscure or underground classics from the decades prior (and I can't disagree), but for something that received any sort of theatrical release, especially among a sea of mediocrity and films considered to be safe bets by distributors, this is pretty fabulous to see. There's also a nice sweeping score that permeates throughout the experience, obviously reminiscent of motion pictures like the aforementioned Cannibal Holocaust but with some added flair and modern touches to help it stand out.


If you're expecting The Green Inferno to change the face of modern horror cinema, then you're going to come out massively disappointed and potentially feeling gipped. If you're looking for a very bloody, slow burn of a project that may leave you and hopefully your less-traveled friends feeling fairly uncomfortable, then perhaps you should give Roth's newest exercise in disturbance and homage to this often-derided style of cinema (the "POR RUGGERO" during the credits will make you crack a smile) a quick glance. In fact, if you're hesitant to venture out to the cineplex, it may be a better choice to see this on a big screen before its sad box office intake chases it to the home video market, solely for the fact that even if it only makes back its own six million dollar budget, it shows that there is a demand for something "different" compared to today's releases that are usually dumped upon the masses. The world needs more The Green Infernos and Ex Machinas and less sequels to Paranormal Activity and Wrong Turn.




Anyways, stay tuned for this year's "Unseen Terror," wherein I do my yearly roundup of random finds in the horror movie field that I've yet to discover until the month of Halloween has fallen upon us. There's a nice treat and theme to this year's iteration too......

Unseen Terror 2014: Day 22

Following the conclusion of the Mexican-American War of the mid-1800s, Second Lieutenant John Boyd has been promoted for an act of bravery which included capturing an enemy's headquarters. However, his superiors soon discover that this was slightly fabricated, as Boyd had faked his death in order to avoid being killed. Exiled to the remote area of Fort Spencer for his act of cowardice, he soon befriends the other occupants. During an ordinary day, a stranger arrives at the stronghold, telling a story of resorting to consume his companions out of desperation, and after the men decide to search for survivors from his entourage, they uncover a secret much worse than they could have ever expected.


Well I'll be damned. I am quite amazed that it has taken me twenty two days to include my first "cannibal" title for my yearly marathon. And what do I choose? An Italian production made back in the 70s or 80s? Or some random title from the last decade or so? Nope. I decided to go with a recently-rereleased title from the folks at Shout! Factory, the late 90s piece known as Ravenous. It seems like I'm subliminally trying to stay away from the decade in which I was born (but that will change later).


I recall seeing the trailers for Ravenous back when the film was being released theatrically, but obviously, I couldn't get in to see it unless my parents were willing to renege on certain rules (I've had to discover most gory or truly disturbing films on my own). Had they known that you could potentially classify this as a black comedy, they may have eased off. Yep, you didn't read that wrong. Writer Ted Griffin, who would go on to help pen the scripts for Matchstick Men and Ocean's 11, blends a rather sick sense of humor with a fairly horrific series of events. In an even more bizarre decision, the film's score is constructed and performed by English musicians Michael Nyman, who has way too many works to his names that I care to list, and Damon Albarn, who is most well known for fronting acts like Blur and Gorillaz. Their compositions alternate between the incredibly tense and the incredibly wacky, resembling something out of a video game soundtrack (Final Fantasy VII came to mind). I don't think it worked as well as they have hoped it would have, but it was undeniably something that stood out, for better or for worse.


For a movie about something so morbid, Ravenous does have some real moments of beauty. Filmed primarily in Slovakia, the scenery and cinematography are quite a sight to behold, almost making you forget that Robert Carlyle's character is butchering human beings for his own consumption. Oh, don't complain about that. If you couldn't piece that together from the above synopsis, then you need to watch more horror movies. But yes, the flick is relatively sick for those with an easy stomach and doesn't skip out on some nice carnage, most of which is provided by the Trainspotting actor mentioned above. While other stars like Memento's Guy Pearce and Beetlejuice's Jeffrey Jones (*cue awkward, uncomfortable groan*) give some solid performances, Carlyle easily steals the show, reveling in the role he's been cast and proving that he is one of Europe's most underrated players when it comes to playing anyone who can be classified as psychotic or unstable. I can also officially say that I forgive Mr. Neal McDonough for his portrayal of M. Bison in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, since he does a fairly good job with the limited amount of screen time he gets here. That and he makes for a great Barry Allen and Dum Dum Dugan. I'll say no such thing for David Arquette though, who doesn't serve much of a purpose outside of just being there and acting somewhat stupid. Alright, that isn't too much of a stretch for him. Still, he was the WCW Heavyweight Champion at one point in his career, and that is just unforgivable.


Ravenous is far from perfect, but I can see why it has a fairly decent following, and why there has been some demand for a proper home video release (it should be out on DVD and Blu-Ray as of this writing). It is certainly a unique way to look at one of the more detestable acts that one can commit against his or her fellow man, with an unexpected mystical element that doesn't seem completely out-of-nowhere, at least if you pay attention to a side character's dialogue towards the beginning or know the legend of the "Wendigo." It also skips out on going for the obvious route of wrapping things up with some rather nonsensical, though interesting twists, and I'd ultimately recommend it as a fairly humorous and bloody experience that's worth at least one watch.



Gosh, it sure would have been nice to hear THIS song at least once though.



Tomorrow, I dip back into the 1980s with the underground classic C.H.U.D!