The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Italian Cinema has been with us since fairly much the beginnings of cinema itself. The first major wave that can be considered a purely Italian one was the neo-realist movement of the 1940s/50s that featured films shot away from studio confines often using non-professional actors. None of this concerns us here but this did bring to attention names like Federico Fellini.
The first major wave of Italian genre films was the Peplum cycle, colloquially known as the Sword and Sandal film, that began with the international success of Hercules (1958). There were numerous Hercules, Samson, Ulysses and Goliath films, as well as the original Italian creation of Maciste, produced throughout the 1960s, all featuring a series of brawny muscle-builders as various mythological heroes in a series of mostly mundane quasi-historical adventures.
The late 1950s gave birth to the Italian horror film, which gained its own identity with Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960), an incredibly moody black-and-white work that spawned its own genre of Gothic films – for which see Continental Gothic. Mario Bava also created the Giallo film that focused on garish colour schemes, sado-sexual elements and extravagant deaths, all wound an improbably contorted psycho-thriller plot.
The 1960s saw Italy spawning a massive industry of exploitation films copying Hollywood models, including the Space Opera and Spy Film. Some of these copies – in particular the Italian Western colloquially called the Spaghetti Western – became their own genre.
The 1970s brought the notorious Italian cannibal film and various other works that sought to push on-screen sadism, torture and dismemberment to perhaps the greatest extreme it has ever been. Many of these works were banned around the world.
The late 1970s brought the occult giallo with Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), which used the same extravagant deaths but with supernatural and occult focuses. The 1990s saw Italy readily copying the success of George Romero’s zombie films in a series of gore-drenched efforts. The same period also saw a number of low-budget copies of Mad Max 2 (1981), along with assorted Action Films.
The Italian exploitation genre largely died away by the mid-1990s. Sporadic genre works have been produced since but nowhere near the prolific output the came out during the heyday between the 1960s-80s.
One of the key films in the cult of Lucio Fulci. Imagine a version of The Amityville Horror with the addition of zombies, mad scientists and a gore-drenched death every few minutes
From the director of Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, comes this home invasion thriller that rips off The Last House on the Left. This was listed as a Video Nasty back in the day
One of several cheap Italian copies that were made after the success of Star Wars starring Richard Kiel as a peaceful intergalactic police inspector who is mutated into a killer humanoid
A film of reality bending conceptual twists about a psychiatrist tending cryogenically frozen prisoners who then wakes to find that he has become one of the prisoners
An absolutely delightful comedy from Maurizio Nichetti, a parody of Bicycle Thieves, which becomes a meta-fiction where the characters emerge from the screen and enter the modern world
Film about a man in his home fearful of demonic forces attacking those around him, this comes with decent atmosphere and at least one highly effective twist
Dario Argento’s sequel to Suspiria, the second film in his Third Mothers trilogy. This is an even better work where Argento delights in sadistic and beautifully artistic imagery almost entirely free of any plot
A low-budget Italian sword-and-sorcery film, one of a host of such films that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian. This was the third entry in the Ator series starring Miles O’Keeffe
A Federico Fellini film in which Fellini’s wife Giulietta Masina plays a housewife whose grasp starts to slip over until it is taken over by hallucination and fantasy
An anthology adapted from the stories of Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello directed by the Taviani Brothers. The stories include a werewolf episode and a ghost story
Cult Italian directer Mario Bava returns to the Gothic of his highly influential Black Sunday in this atmosphere-laden film about a ghost child haunting a small village
A sequel to Killer Crocodile, which was a dreary Italian-made Jaws ripoff. Here another radioactive waste mutated crocodile stalks people. Indifferently made.
An Italian exploitation ripoff of Jaws with a group of environmentalists in South America dealing with a killer crocodile that has been made giant size by radioactive waste
Notorious Video Nasty, a key work in the Nunsploitation genre with Anita Ekberg as a drug addicted nun who kills her patients. Apparently based on real life
This has nothing to do with King Kong and is an adventure film that features a female Tarzan and a mad scientist creating an army of mind-controlled gorillas
One of several continental Frankenstein films of the 1970s, concerning Frankenstein’s daughter. This tries to imitate Hammer Films on a lesser budget and with more nudity
The Italian cannibal film is the most extreme genre ever seen. An earlier effort from the director of Cannibal Holocaust, this delivers the gut-munching goods
The first adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and the only one faithful to the novel with Vincent Price as the last man alive facing vampires outside his door
One of several Italian exploitation copycats of Jaws. This has the reputation as the film that was such a blatant ripoff that Universal sued to stop its release
From the director of the original Inglorious Bastards, an action film with Erik Estrada as a cop pursuing a blackmailing scientist who has a powerful laser weapon
The last great film from Mario Bava, an exquisitely dreamy giallo/haunted house film that had the ignomity of being butchered and made into an Exorcist copy when it came out
Giallo thriller from Lucio Fulci who gained a cult following in the 1980s for his gore-drenched films. This comes with more style than all of Fulci’s other unadulterated hackwork put together
A film that started as a documentary about a man engaged in the restoration of an Italian villa before its subject died and it morphed into a peculiar fantasy film
The directorial debut of Mario Bava’s son Lamberto, a supposedly based on true life tale about a woman who keeps her late lover’s severed head in the fridge
Fascinating artifact from the silent era. One of the original Italian muscleman films in which the titular strongman is whisked down to Hell where efforts are made to seduce him into staying
Lucio Fulci film about a series of supernatural deaths caused by an Egyptian amulet. An incoherent and plotless mess filled with random supernatural effects and occasional gore scenes
One of the numerous spy films of the 1960s, featuring Patrick O’Neal who goes into action with a magic invisibility ring
The controversial Pier Paolo Pasolini makes a film based on Medea – the wife of Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts fame), from Greek myth, not to be confused with Tyler Perry’s films, Contrary to the way she is usually portrayed on screen as Jason’s love interest, there is another whole story where she is a vengeance-crazed witch who slaughters their children after he leaves her for another woman
An Italian exploitation film intended to take advantage of the 80s makeup effects revolution of the day as a scientist injects himself with an untested serum and transforms into a monster
One of the films from the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s, Released fairly soon into the cycle when the tropes were not set in place, it draws strong influence from Hammer Films and goes off at a strange tangent that is one part House of Wax, another part resurrection experiments
One of the classics of the Italian Neo-Realist period, a charming whimsy about homeless people who built a shantytown
Antonio Margheriti, better known for his Gothic horror and giallo films, makes an invisible man comedy
A whimsical Italian fantasy with Sophia Loren as a peasant girl who connects with price Omar Sharif amid romance and magic
After 27 years, Dario Argento finally rounds out his Three Mothers trilogy begun way back with Suspiria but the underwhelming results give all evidence of his having lost his mojo
A giallo film with occult overtones centred around the discovery of an Etruscan tomb. As a series of murders occur, the heroine may be the reincarnation of an ancient high priestess
Italian-made film centred around a haunted lake that sits just between earnest amateurism and promising ambition. Features a range of mysterious happenings that you leave you for some time wondering what is going on before these are pulled together in a surprise ending
One of a number of Italian-made copies of Mad Max 2 from Enzo G. Castellari. This is cheap and in some of the writing and dialogue frequently laughable
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
Classic work of the 1960s Italian Gothic cycle featuring Barbara Steele, shot in beautifully brooding black-and-white and with a remarkable sadomasochistic undertow
One of the numerous gore-drenched Italian zombie films of the 1980s copying George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The film is like the kid in class who doesn’t have much skill but who throws himself into what he does with wholehearted abandon
An Italian exploitation film about gangs fighting in the ruins of a future New York. Director Enzo G. Catsellari has ripped off both Escape from New York and The Warriors
Strong and intelligent Cyberpunk film with Christopher Lambert dealing with a videogame character that has come to life
Sequel to Nosferatu the Vampyre featuring a return performance from Klaus Kinski with the action (or lack thereof) relocated to Venice
A superior example of the giallo film. Not quite up with the works of Dario Argento, this still has considerable stylishness, along with a plot that borrows from Eyes of Laura Mars
With the success of the James Bond films in the 1960s, someone had the idea of casting Sean Connery’s younger brother Neil in a spy film
This may well be the finest of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers. Set around the production of an opera, this offers a series of murder set-pieces staged with an artistry that is as extraordinary as their sadism
Patrick was a modest Australian film about a bedridden coma patient exhibiting physic powers. This is an unofficial Italian-made sequel made way back before anyone coined the term mockbuster. This has no compunctions about aiming for the completely trashy – and all the more entertainingly for it
Dario Argento takes on The Phantom and welcomely rescues it from musical romance and returns it to being a horror film. Despite a beautifully mounted production, Julian Sands’ Phantom is too weak and wimpy
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers filled with all his trademark artily extravagant deaths. At the centre of the film is a teenage Jennifer Connelly who can psychically communicate with insects
A beautifully made new live-action version of the classic story about a puppet boy. More faithful to the original story than any other screen version and with amazing creature effects. Think something that resembles Jim Henson circa The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth made with the sensibilities of a Terry Gilliam
Cult Italian horror director Mario Bava makes an SF film where explorers find an alien planet where aliens possess the dead (not vampires despite the title). In many ways a precursor of Alien
From cult director Joe D’Amato, this throws together hardcore erotica and gory zombie film in a conceptually bizarre mix that leaves you scratching your head
A blatant copy of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now from cult Italian director Lucio Fulci. Here Don’t Look Now reduced to no more than a dull clairvoyant murder mystery
Italian film about a superhero that gains animal powers by putting on a belt. A strong contender for the worst superhero film ever made
Gerard Depardieu is being interrogated by police inspector Roman Polanski over a murder he cannot remember. Solid, well constructed drama that is turned on its head with a surprise ending
Strange, artistically stylised almost giallo film with Franco Nero as a frustrated artist blurring into visions from the past
An Italian exploitation film about models in the Caribbean being hunted by a vicious rat-monkey hybrid. Some occasionally gory deaths but not much happens
A giallo film where a family curse about the vengeance of a red queen starts being enacted with a mystery figure bumping off relatives following the reading of a will
On the face of it, this is not the most likely of films to be included – a depiction of the ill-fated true-life expedition to cross the North Pole in a dirigible in 1928 – but is for a wraparound wherein the survivor is judged by a tribunal of ghosts. A beautifully made and epical film
From Italy, a blatant copy of Predator – only where instead of a military unit being hunted through the jungle by an alien, they are hunted by a copycat of RoboCop
Lucio Fulci was a cult Italian horror director. This was the only occasion that Fulci visited the SF film, a low-budget ripoff of Rollerball by way of Mad Max featuring futuristic gladiatorial games
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s adaptation of the work by the Marquis de Sade is a catalogue of depravities and tortures and one of the most disturbing films ever made
The last film from the great Mario Bava – an uncanny effort filled with some strikingly spooky scenes that leaves you uncertain whether what we are seeing is a haunting, a possession or is taking place in a mad woman’s fraying mind
A film written/produced by Dario Argento, an occult giallo in the vein of his Three Mothers films in which a teacher is surrounded by a series of occult happenings and deaths
A not bad giallo film from Umberto Lenzi, the director who created the notorious Italian cannibal film. Antonio Sabato [Sr] tries to trace the identity of a killer in black who leaves a silver pendant at each murder
A mind-bogglingly bad film that has absolutely nothing to do with H. Rider Haggard and is a post-holocaust film with Sandahl Bergman as an Amazonian warrior. The film is made with a bizarreness that may cause mental damage
The late Bud Spencer and his compatriot Terence Hill appeared in seventeen badly dubbed, slapstick comedies in the 1970s/80s … Spencer went it alone for this excruciating slapstick take on Close Encounters of the Third Kind in which that film’s kid Cary Guffey is an alien found by Spencer’s sheriff
An Airplane/Naked Gun styled parody of The Silence of the Lambs
A giallo film about a killer who is murdering adulterous women. Standard material but some of the film’s dated sexual attitudes cause quite a double take today
Another entry in the notorious Italian cannibal genre of the 70s. As with most of this genre, the film delights in pushing everything to gore-drenched extremes
One of the more routine of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers. The artily stylistic set-pieces are disappointingly average and even the plot relatively straightforward
A work of brooding Italian Gothic, a loose sequel to The Terror of Dr Hichcock. Featuring oodles of atmosphere and the genre’s indisputable queen Barbara Steele as a wife haunted by a dead husband
Italian giallo with a professor in Budapest investigating a cult of spider worshippers
A Giallo thriller about a series of murders that take place during the rehearsal for a play. Michele Soavi directs a series of vivid suspense set-pieces
One of the less effective films in the oeuvre of Dario Argento. Another giallo thriller, this has the same flourishes of style in sporadic moments but the plot is even more confusing than usual
A giallo film about a masked man killing models. This comes with an attention-grabbing title that proves more sensational than most of what happens in the film
The work on which the cult of director Dario Argento was built. The film consists of a series of extravagantly arty deaths at a girls boarding school, although comes without any real plot connecting this
One of the various low-budget Italian sword and sorcery of the 1980s that borrows much from Conan the Barbarian
A trio of tales from the world’s oldest fairytale collection – but quite different to anything you expect … While there is all the magic, ogres and princesses, this is a beautifully lush film made for adults and less about simple homilies that about fate and its cruel twists
Trilogy of Edgar Allan Poe tales from three European directors. Roger Vadim’s opening episode drags but both Louis Malle and Federico Fellini deliver standout works in their respective segments
Federico Fellini’s episode of the anthology Boccacio 70 in which a giant size Anita Ekberg steps off a billboard to tempt a moralist with lust
Another of Dario Argento’s giallo psycho-thrillers with all the stylistically wild and over-the-top deaths one expects as a horror writer finds people being murdered with pages from his books in their mouths
One of the more absurd of the Animals Attack films that sought to cash in on the success of Jaws concerning a giant octopus on the attack
Satiric film set in a future where contestants hunt and kill one another on a tv show. The first film on the theme of human bloodsports later popularised by The Hunger Games and others
Pier Paolo Pasolini makes a film in which a Christ-like visitor appears, seduces all the members of an upper-class family and departs, leaving their lives changed. A fascinating study in the effects of religion on ordinary lives
An entry in the Italian Gothic cycle featuring the great Barbara Steele, This comes with superbly eerie black-and-white mood but proves slow-paced when it comes to its supernatural retribution plot. It even manages to waste Steele in a nothing role.
Influential if possibly overrated work in the Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s. There’s the haunted figure of Barbara Steele and rich atmosphere, even if the plot doesn’t make much sense
Behind the strange title, this is an Italian-made superhero film. In contrast to the various Marvel and DC adaptations overrunning screens, this is a kitchen sink superhero film that comes with a refreshing lack of capes, super-villains and effects – if anything, it plays more as an Italian crime film
Dull remake of the classic Arabian Nights film that casts Steve Reeves and tries to make it into a Hercules peplum adventure
Another film amid Woody Allen’s European renaissance, four tales all set around the gorgeously shot location of Rome. The stories are on the slight side and it is lesser Allen but there is great casting and moments where Allen is on good form
Another giallo thriller from Dario Argento filled with all the wild bursts of imagination, bizarre plot twists and set-pieces we have come to expect from him
Acclaimed as one of the worst films ever made, this has a legendary bizarreness that has made it a cult film, everything from the ridiculousness of its dialogue and effects to the cast that seems made up of unskilled amateurs
One of the numerous Mad Max imitators made in Italy. Directed by notorious adult director Joe D’Amato who pushes the material further than the other entries do
A giallo thriller from Mario Bava that is often regarded as the prototype of the slasher film. The film borrows from Agatha Christie with people isolated on an island being killed amid Bava’s artily extravagant set-ups
George Romero and Dario Argento collaborate on an anthology, each adapting an Edgar Allan Poe tale. Either director leaves you with high expectations but the results are very mixed
One of the more cheesily entertaining among the Italian-made ripoffs of Mad Max 2 during the 1980s (as well as more than a few dashes of Escape from New York). The film works up a moderate head of steam
An Italian space opera where a professor and associates are abducted after finding an alien craft. The film’s main distinction was being redubbed in English under the title Star Pilot to be released as a copy of Star Wars
Lavishly made Greek myth adventure, an adaptation of The Odyssey with Kirk Douglas as Ulysses/Odysseus
The Italian Gothic cycle of the 1960s was filled with works of amazing visual flair – this is where it started. Although this is more a 1940s mad scientist film, it comes with all the decaying old castles and beautifully moody b&w lighting
The original i>Violent Shit films were a series of plotless, gore-drenched German films of the 80-90s. This is a very loose Italian-made remake that is more about the activities of an occult serial killer. Not very well made but there are a lot of homages to classic giallo cinema