Tag Archives: Giallo

The Curator of Schlock #329: Tenebrae

07 Friday Aug 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #329 by Jeff Shuster

Tenebrae

Also known as Tenebre. Someone needs to learn how to spell.

I tried mentioning the coffin filled with ashes to Jervis, but he flew the coop before I could say anything. He left a note behind, something about a sick grandmother. Jervis prepped a rack of lamb in the fridge with instructions on reheating. He even included mint jelly. Mmmmm. Mint jelly. Still, I don’t like being in this mansion all by myself. I hear funny noises at night.

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We’re kicking off another Giallo Month and it’s not like I need an excuse to enjoy these macabre Italian thrillers in the heat of August. Tonight’s movie is 1982’s Tenebrae from director Dario Argento. I have to say if you wanted to get into Giallo movies, Tenebrae would be a great place to start. The man who kicked off the genre returned in 1982 to direct what is one his best films. Also at the helm on the soundtrack side are former members of Goblin: Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, and Massimo Morante. If that isn’t enough to sell you on Tenebrae, this movie made it on Great Britain’s list of video nasties. You couldn’t even buy a copy of Tenebrae over there until 1999.

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The movie begins with an American writer, Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), taking a trip to Rome, Italy to promote his latest thriller, Tenebrae. He’s greeted in Rome by his assistant, Anna (Daria Nicolodi), and his literary agent, Bullmer (John Saxon). Bulmer is excited that Tenebrae has remained on the bestseller list for twelve weeks straight and is even more excited about the new fedora he purchased. Seriously, this Bullmer guy is truly obsessed with his hat. This is 1982! Were men wearing fedoras back then? Not that I can remember. Maybe in Europe?

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Anyway, Peter Neal’s arrival in Rome coincides with murder, murder, murder! Yes, there’s a psycho serial killer on the loose. The first murder is a shoplifter named Elsa. The killer tears pages out of Tenebrae and shoves them down Elsa’s throat before slitting said throat with a razor blade. The next murder is that of a young feminist critic of Peter Neal that labeled Tenebrae “a sexist novel.” She also gets her throat slit.

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One segment of this film is real nightmare fuel for those of you out there with dog phobias. A teenage girl named Maria walks home after a date gone wrong and is alarmed by a barking doberman pinscher behind a gate. She tries scaring him off with a stick to no avail and smartly steps away only to be alarmed when the canine jumps the gate and dashes down the street after her. After running through a park and fending off the beast, she sneaks into the garage of the closest house only to discover it to be the home of the serial killer. Yeah, things aren’t going to work out well for Maria.

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Naturally, Peter Neal gets involved in trying to solve who the murderer is since the Italian police department is dumbfounded as it usually is in these movies. I won’t spoil the rest of the movie, but things are not as they seem. Tenebrae is one of Argento’s better movies. I’d put it in his top five.

JOHN SAXON

1936-2020

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John Saxon is a favorite of this blog for movies such as Battle Beyond the Stars, Cannibal Apocalypse, and Black Christmas. He may be gone from this world, but he will never be gone from The Museum of Schlock. I expect to encounter him in several more unearthed cinematic gems. Rest in peace, John Saxon.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #288: Delirium

30 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #288 by Jeff Shuster

Delirium

That will be the title of my memoir. 

Week Five of Giallo Month here at The Museum of Schlock. What do you want me to say? I’m all gialloed out this point.

But I will persevere.

It’s usually around this point that I tell myself I will never do another Giallo Month. Of course, this is a lie. All it will take is for The House With the Laughing Windows or The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh to show up on streaming or on Blu-ray and I’ll be putty in Edwige Fenech’s hands again.

In fact, if Severin Films give them the royal treatment like All the Colors of the Dark, I’ll be a very happy man. That one came with a soundtrack CD.

Yes, I listen to Giallo soundtracks. Don’t make fun.

Tonight’s movie, Delirium, features tracks by Simon Boswell. He used to work with The Sex Pistols and Echo and the Bunnymen. Maybe you’ve heard of those bands.

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1987’s Delirium from director Lamberto Bava is interesting to watch since I’m more used to watching Gialli from the 70s, but the Italian movie industry kept moving along until it fell on hard times in the early 90s. Anyway, the movie begins and we’re treated to a barrage of synth rock and photos of naked ladies. The movie stars Serena Grandi as Gloria, a fierce and beautiful young woman who happens to run a very popular men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine called Pussycat. Gloria may have been a prostitute prior to marrying her late husband, the owner of the magazine. I’m assuming he was a Hugh Hefner type whose bum ticker finally tocked itself out.

Gloria would seem to have it all: a talented staff of photographers and models, a big fancy mansion, and a teenage paraplegic neighbor named Mark who makes obscene phone calls.

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But this wouldn’t be a Giallo without a little bit of murder. One night, one of Gloria’s models, Kim, gets stabbed in the stomach with a pitchfork and falls into Gloria’s swimming pool. However, the next morning, no body is found. Turns out the killer dumped Kim’s mutilated body into a dumpster, but not before taking photos of her corpse in front of a blown up photo of Gloria.

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In a later scene, the killer is dressed in a beekeeper’s suit. The killer seals off the doors and windows in this one model’s house, into which he releases a torrent of bees. Hundreds of bees sting the naked model as she’s drying herself off from a shower. To add insult to injury, the killer squirts honey into her hair.

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More murders happen. The killer is obsessed with Gloria. He stalks her in an empty department store, killing her brother and his girlfriend who were giving her an after hours tour. Gloria swears she heard a woman’s voice taunting her, but the police are zeroing in on a male suspect, Tony, the photographer. He gets run over by a car before police can question him, but they consider the case closed after that.

Or is it?

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Serena Grandi is known as the Dolly Parton of Italy. This is odd in that she never sang country music.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #287: Death Laid an Egg

23 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #287 by Jeff Shuster

Death Laid an Egg

So did the director.

Week 4 of Giallo Month is here. Are you entertained? Did you know that over 400 gialli were made over there in Italy? Do you think I’m getting through all of them in this lifetime? I don’t think so. And you’d better believe that I’m going to try to watch as many of these through streaming services. But the trouble with services like Amazon Prime is that they giveth and taketh away. I planned to review Torso this month, but it’s no longer available. I planned on reviewing Eye in the Labyrinth this month, but every time I click on it to play, no dice. But never fear, I’ve found a replacement.

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Tonight’s movie is 1968’s Death Laid an Eggfrom director Giulio Questi. If you ever wanted to spend ninety minutes in an automated chicken farm, then this is the movie for you!

Oh, man. I’ve got about three hundred and fifty more words to go.

How did I get here?

I am not finding myself in my beautiful house with my beautiful wife. Instead, I find myself watching a late 60s Italian poultry fetish movie at two in the morning. I can get through this. I can do it.

Death Laid an Egg starts out with a man named Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant) meeting up with a woman in a hotel room. The woman is a prostitute and Marco mustn’t like prostitutes since he starts slicing her up with a straight razor. Later, Marco goes into an office building to figure out the best way to advertise chickens. You see, Marco co-manages a chicken farm with his sexy wife, Anna (Gina Lollobrigida). The chicken farm was recently automated which resulted in the plant workers being let go from their jobs.

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Anna and Marco live an idyllic life on the chicken farm. They have a palatial estate, a fancy swimming pool, and separate beds to sleep in so they don’t hog each other’s covers at night. Anna also let her down-on-her luck cousin, Gabri (Ewa Aulin), stay with them. Gabri happens to be a young, pretty blonde woman and attracts the attention of Marco. The two begin having an affair. Marco wants to run away with her, start his life over with her, but Gabri refuses.

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Meanwhile, Anna is obsessed with breeding the perfect chicken. She has bioengineers working to achieve this. Eventually, chickens are hatched that have no heads or wings, but are full of meat with few bones. Marco considers them an abomination. Anna thinks they are the chicken of tomorrow and can’t wait to showcase them before the Poultry Commission, but Marco destroys them before she gets the chance. This puts Marco in hot water with the Poultry Commission. You could say his goose is cooked.

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What am I watching here? I want to see horrific murders being committed by a psychopath with black gloves, trench coat, and fedora. I don’t want a diatribe on the dehumanizing effects of automation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have the hankering for some chicken salad.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #286: Weekend Murders

16 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #286 by Jeff Shuster

Weekend Murders

What are you doing this weekend?

Anyone catch the latest season of Grantchester, the gem of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS? This season was a tsunami of mystery and heartache. Reverend Sidney Chambers fell in love with a woman of color visiting from the American South during the Civil Rights movement.  He moved to America to be with her. Leonard was struggling with his role of curate while trying to keep his homosexuality a secret. DI Geordie had to contend with his wife working as a sales associate at a fancy new department store in town. Oh, and Geordie’s wife ends up getting sexually harassed by a coworker resembling Orson Welles. And let’s not forget about new vicar of Grantchester, Will Davenport, a dashing young man with his own dark secrets. But I’m wasting my time, aren’t I? None of you want to hear me talk about fine British television. Such is my lot in life.

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This week’s Giallo is 1970’s The Weekend Murders from director Michele Lupo. Like Grantchester, The Weekend Murders takes its cues from the British cozy, the quaint mysteries that take place in the country as opposed to the big city. Sure, a murder or two may take place, but at least the surroundings are pleasant. The movie begins with an English bobby named Sgt. Aloisius Thorpe (Gastone Moschin) cycling through the English village of Somerleyton. He’s a rather goofy looking chap, complete with a bobby mustache and big teeth. He looks like the kind of bobby they make lamps out of.

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Anyway, Sgt. Thorpe rides through town on his bicycle. He rides up next to a milk truck, pops one of the bottles open, drinks his fill, and pays the driver. I’ve never seen that in a movie. He then travels to a golf course where some well-to-do members of the gentry are enjoying a game until one of them finds a hand sticking up out of the sand trap. Someone’s been murdered! The movie then sets us back a couple of days where we’re introduced to these well-to-do members of the gentry, showing up at a rich estate to find out about their inheritance. The old geezer bequeaths his prized flowers to Sgt. Thorpe, who openly weeps to the disgust of various playboys, snobs, and a prodigal daughter or two. Everyone else gets nothing with the exception of the old geezer’s niece, Barbara (Anna Moffo), who inherits the estate.

Of course, if Barbara were to die, the estate with be divided evenly among the remaining family members. Naturally, bodies start showing up. I think the first is the family butler, ruling him out as a murder suspect. I think someone points that out in the movie, so it’s not that funny.

Scotland Yard sends over their finest detective, Inspector Grey (Lance Percival), to solve the case. The rest of the movie shows off the sublime incompetence of Detective Grey counterbalanced with surprising ingenuity of Sgt. Thorpe. Together they’ll get to the bottom of the murders. This is an odd one, an Giallo movie rife with English stereotypes, but I enjoyed it … though not as much as Grantchester.

The Weekend Murders is streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #285: Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye

09 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #285 by Jeff Shuster

Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye

Orangutan at Dragonstone Castle

It’s week 2 of Giallo Month here at the Museum of Schlock. I spent a small fortune on some jars of bathwater taken from the bathtub scene from The Case of the Bloody Iris, the scene where that one model jumped up naked from the bubble bath. I did this purely for research purposes and not for some sick fetish I’m too ashamed to admit in public. I may put these jars on display, but I can’t promise anything. I’m so lonely.

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Tonight’s fine specimen of Italian cinema is 1973’s Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye from director Antonio Margheriti (whose glorious name is an easter egg in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds).

The flick starts out with a man being murdered. I think he’s getting cut up with a razor blade. A big fluffy cat looks on with bemusement. You could say the cat is eyeing the death. Six deaths to go!

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The movie takes place in this castle on an island off the coast of England, Scotland, or some British country. Oh, and the castle is full of rats too. They make short work out of the corpse mentioned above. If you ever wanted to see rats chewing off a dead guy’s face, this is the movie for you.

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Okay. The protagonist of our cinematic journey is Corringa (Jane Birkin), a beautiful young woman who was away at boarding school, but left abruptly after she upset the nuns.  As she’s getting dropped off at her family home, Dragonstone Castle, we see a deformed orangutan peeking out at her through one of the castle windows. Forget about the serial killer, there’s an orangutan loose in the castle! I’ll take my chances with the serial killer!

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We get a dinner scene with a bunch of potential suspects and victims. We’ve got Dr. Franz (Anton Differing), the family headshrinker who must be on call because these rich families always have a few screws loose due to inbreeding. There’s Padre Robertson (Venantino Venantini), the family’s Catholic Priest who must also be on call to hear a few confessions. Oh, and Corringa has a mad cousin named Lord James MacGrieff (Hiram Keller) whols a potential love interest for her when he isn’t being rude and drinking his dinner. Another guest is a French teacher named Suzanne (Doris Kuntsmann) who was hired as a potential mistress for mad Lord James, but she ended up having an affair with Dr. Franz who is also dating one of the older Ladies of the castle, Corringa’s mother or mad Lord James’s mother.

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Are you following all of this? Can you explain it to me?

Bodies start piling up. Who could the killer be?

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I know exactly what you’re thinking.

It’s the orangutan, but that’s too easy. Also, why would an orangutan go to the trouble of using a razor blade to kill someone? Unless, it’s a killer dressed up as an orangutan. What a brilliant idea. You could dress up as an orangutan, kill some people the way a human being would, and no one would ever suspect you. I think I just came up with the perfect crime. Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone.

Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye can be found on Amazon Prime streaming.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #284: The Case of the Bloody Iris

02 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #284 by Jeff Shuster

The Case of the Bloody Iris

It’s a bloody good time. 

The Museum of Schlock is long overdue for an exhibit of Giallo, those wonderful Italian combinations of murder mystery and horror.

I’ve got my black gloves, trench coat, fedora, and black nylon facemask ready to go. Hey, just because a man dresses in such manner that doesn’t make him a serial killer. Don’t be so shallow.

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1972’s The Case of the Bloody Iris from director Giuliano Carnimeo is a tour de force of sex, murder, and madness. The radiant Edwige Fenech portrays Jennifer Osterman, a young model who used to belong to a New Age cult, and by New Age, I mean Satanic.

Okay. Maybe that’s too far. Who am I too judge?

What am I judging?

This one guy from the cult married Jennifer, but then insisted that she be shared with the other men of the cult. I guess the orgy lifestyle wasn’t for Jennifer so she left the cult for the glamorous career of a fashion model. Her husband didn’t like that so he stalks her.

Oh, and the movie begins with a murder in an elevator. One of the models in the upper level apartments gets her throat slit. Another model named Mizar Harrington (Carla Brait) sees the corpus delicti in the elevator, but can’t be bothered to call the police because she must get ready for a show. In this show, Mizar stands on a stage and demands that one of the hot and bothered men in the crowd try to catch her and dominate her. If they can do this, Mizar will be his slave, ready to do whatever her captor wants.

None of the men in the audience can subdue her, but later that night, a psychopath wearing a trench coat, leather gloves, fedora, and black nylon facemask ties her up and drowns her in own bathtub.

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The apartment gets rented to Jennifer and her friend Marilyn (Paola Quattrini). During a dinner party with a gentleman friend of Jennifer’s, Marilyn pretends to have drowned in the bathtub, only to spring up naked and laughing at the two of them. Pretty funny. I would be a little creeped out taking a bath in tub someone was drowned to death in, but Marilyn thinks it’s a lark. Jennifer’s gentleman friend is Andrea Antinori (George Hilton), a rich and handsome man who gets paralyzed by the sight of blood.

What else? We have a Police Commissioner Enci (Giampiero Albertini) who is busy trying to solve the murders when he’s not getting all liquored up. He sends his incompetent assistant Redi (Franco Agostini) to keep an eye on Jennifer. Redi witnesses Jennifer and Andrea eating at a fine restaurant while he’s stuck with a sad sandwich. While stuck in his sad stakeout car, Redi spies on Andrea’s fancy house as Andrea and Jennifer make mad, passionate love inside.  None of this is getting the police any closer to catching the murderer.

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Who is the murderer? Could it be Jennifer’s obsessive ex-husband who thinks that Jennifer belongs to him (and the other creep-o men in the cult)?

Could it be the demented son of the old lady who lives in the apartment next door to Jennifer, the guy who reads all of those disgusting horror comics?

Or could it be Andrea, the perfect man who seems to have a problem with the sight of blood due to him getting into a car accident with his dad when he was a child, the blood from his dad’s lifeless corpse dripping on his face? I could tell you, but I have to get ready for a show. The Case of the Bloody Iris is currently on Amazon Prime Streaming.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.