Of Hollywood and Puritans: MaxXxine (2024)

MaxXxine (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Charley Rowan McCain, Simon Prast, Mia Goth

First, in 2022, director Ti West threw us back in time to the 1970s to experience X, a barn massacre through the lens of porn culture and Southern fried proto-slashers ala Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Eaten Alive (1976). And then, just a few months later, he had us seeing and feeling the tragedy that is that movie's leading villainess in her own origin story ala prequel title, Pearl, a grim yet loving nod to old 1910s Hollywood technicolor and psycho-drama. Now, West has returned to act as our tour guide across Mid-80s Regan era Tinseltown, following the footsteps of an uprising starlet with a dark, shadowy past: Maxine fucking Minx!

It's been six years since Maxine (Mia Goth) survived her brush with death after a porn shoot in rural Texas turned into a massacre and she's now working as an underground porn celebrity. But Miss Minx wants more in her life; the glamour of Hollywood, her feet on the red carpet and her name on The Walk of Fame. She wants to be a star. A real Hollywood star. And she's willing to climb her way into mainstream fame by any means necessary, that including starring in a woman-directed sequel to a controversial horror title, The Puritan. (Which is so bad, there are already Christian zealots with picking signs outside the studio, expressing their displeasure of the production!)

Fortunately for Maxine, she got the role! Unfortunately for her, her past refuses to stay buried: a shifty private investigator (Kevin Bacon) begins to stalk and pester her about her involvement in the porn shoot massacre, threatening to expose this dirty little secret should she refuse to follow the orders of an enigmatic benefactor. Little does he know, Maxine, who spends a few spare times at night beating the balls out of creeps, as well as scoring some connections to the shadier side of the acting business through her agent, is more than ready to get her hands dirty to make sure that part of her life remains six feet under.

Would this be enough, however, to stop a shadowy figure who's not only following Maxine's rise to stardom, but is murdering those she have grown close to lately? Perhaps there's more to the arrival of the investigator than expected. Someone out there wants her to know they're watching. Waiting. Judging whether to punish her for accepting a life she doesn't deserve... 

Comparing this with X (2022) and Pearl (2022), MaxXxine (2024) strays the furthest away from being a horror flick and is more of a crime thriller with horror elements, practically a neo-giallo painted in late-80s nostalgia. Much of the plot here is centered on Maxine's struggle to reach the limelight of Hollywood and the murder investigation she finds herself tangled in, with the former being the more intriguing deal of the movie as it opened an opportunity for the titular character to be explored further, to see how she would deal with the challenges standing in her way to become Hollywood's next big thing. It's a neat set-up and it has its moments of interest, most involving Kevin Bacon's creep of a character being beaten black, blue and red all over, but the effect feels cheapened by the direction's lack of depth and dimension, something that could've been corrected if only the characters, Maxine included, were more defined and developed to raise the stakes higher, making this should-be thrilling mystery, well, thrilling! But instead, the casts are reduced to one-note names caught in a bizarre stalk-and-stab situation, most of who are pushed aside with how much the story focused on Maxine's rise to stardom. All the while Maxine herself remains stagnant as a personality in her pursuit for success, leaving us with a journey that's too straight of a line to be anything more exciting.  

It's not until the third act where the horror shtick rears its ugly head in full gear after popping in and out throughout the film in small servings. This, in turn, means we only get a handful of slasher-friendly scenes, the closest to looking and feeling genuinely straight out of a bodycounter flick being a savage knife murder at a video store. Curiously enough, the kill count does go double digits eventually, but this is through a macabre police shootout at the story's conclusion, again putting MaxXxine (2024) further away from being a fright flick and aligned closer with horror-flavored cop thrillers ala Manhunter (1986) or Body Double (1984).

Despite all of these shortcomings, though, MaxXxine (2024) is far from unwatchable. It's lacking, sure, but it's entertaining if you're not really looking for a movie that dives deep into its own story and is more on the deal of giving us a messed-up misadventure tainted with blood and intrigue just for the sake of it. It's beautifully shot as a nostalgic piece, impressively recreating a good dose of late-80s vibe and aesthetic from the music to make-up, from its set-pieces to the bouncing-rocking soundtrack. (Love me a good Kim Carnes song!) The mystery itself is also a fun little trip from the little connive it generated as to who exactly is out to get Maxine. The reveal is sort of underwhelming, I'll admit, but the madness that follows has just that much crazy going for it that it works, not to mention it does tie up Maxine's Hollywood saga quite nicely if anything. (Plus it leads to an awesome head decimation, that has to count for something) And, of course, Mia Goth being quite the spunky, hard-hitting doll as she nails her role magnificently! Maxine may be underdeveloped, but at least she's a fun watch thanks to Goth's performance.

Not quite the showstopper I expected for Ti West's 'X' trilogy to end on but, small mercies, MaxXxine (2024) could have been worse. Way worse. It might be missing the gore-soaked, haunting creepiness of X (2022), or the soul-crushing heartbreak of Pearl (2022), as a shlocky cop thriller-slash-murder adventure, this one is serviceable enough on a B-grade scale. 

Bodycount:

2 females murdered offscreen, bodies later found in a lake

1 male slaughtered with a hunting knife

1 male handcuffed inside a car, crushed to death in a hydraulic compactor

1 female found dismembered

2 males seen shot dead

1 male shot

1 female shot

1 female shot

1 male shot

1 male shot, stabbed in the nose with switchblade

1 male shot

1 male shot

1 male found shot dead

1 male shot, bled to death

1 female found stabbed in the eye with a crucifix, falls down a hill

1 male had his head shot and decimated with a shotgun

Total: 18

Masquerading Madness in Venice: Veneciafrencia (2021)

Veneciafrencia (Spain, 2021)

Rating: **

Starring: Ingrid García Jonsson, Silvia Alonso and Goize Blanco

In this giallo-inspired horror thriller, a group of five Spanish tourists visit Venice for what's supposed to be an extravagant bachelorette party, only to end up caught and tangled in a web of socio-political tensions and random murders committed by a madman in a court jester's outfit when one of them suddenly disappears the day after they all attended a secret rave. With a premise like that, Veneciafrencia (2021) could have had a rich world and intriguing plot points to center a bodycount flick around with its talks of mass tourism ruining a beloved country and the lengths some people would go to dispose what they deem as a "plague" that's ruining their beautiful city. Unfortunately, the movie can't seem to decide whether it wants to be playful with the idea or be straight with it, resulting to an erratic direction that further loses its worth as it focuses on a gang of charmless characters in a set-up not too far off from Eli Roth's Hostel franchise.

The pacing and tone are just all over, in turn, as the movie pretends to be something deep and witty as a by-the-book conspiracy thriller for some moments, only to be gutted down by its own cluster of hammy horror and crazy killings as a slasher flick in the next. It's a clumsy hodge-podge juggle that's unnecessarily complicated in its execution seeing there's really no sense of mystery regarding why the villains are doing all of this as it's basically plastered all over the scenes involving our casts interacting with many of the locals. This, unsurprisingly, results to the story's flow just bogging down with pointless police procedurals and investigations, making its hundred minute-long barrage of bland characters and tired clichés eventually lose its steam in its last act with an unrewarding conclusion to boot.

On a more positive note, Veneciafrencia (2021) does succeed in making its slasher scenes memorable in a goofy yet gruesome way, with a couple of murders happening during public daylight as our killer chortles at gathering crowds of tourists that everything horrible he's doing is just an act and these idiots simply eating up this claim without any sense of hesitation. It's absurdly silly and a tad too convenient, with all forms of logic and realism thrown out, but keeps rather a quirky energy in its viciousness, a welcome take for a bloody good time even if most of the kills were from random bystanders. Aside from that, the film also benefits from looking quite stunning with its location shots and camera work, showcasing the beauty of Venice in and out of the horror scenes and the stellar production work done behind the film.

With more miss than hits, Veneciafrencia (2021) is a good enough horror film that could've been better if it found a way to balance out its commentary themes and splashy slasher hook in a way that would benefit one another. Give it a try if you like, though expect a hobbled path. 

Bodycount:

1 male bludgeoned to death with a camera

1 female dragged away, killed offscreen

1 male repeatedly ran through with a sword

1 male repeatedly ran through with a sword, decapitated

1 female had her throat cut with a sword

1 male seen crushed on a dock by a cruise ship (video)

1 female had her hands and back hacked with hooks

1 male shot

1 male and 1 female found dead from cut wrists

Total: 10

Of Glamor and Gore: Crystal Eyes (2017)

Crystal Eyes (Mirada De Cristal) (Argentina, 2017)

Rating: ***

Starring: Silvia Montanari, Anahí Politi and Erika Boveri

Buenos Aires, 1984. At a back alley runway show, supermodel Alexis Carpenter shows how much of a rotten diva she is by verbally abusing other models, scalding her make-up artist's face with hot coffee after a confrontation about her primadonna attitude, and then finally assaulting the audience with spat champagne as she jugs an entire bottle while strutting a wedding dress. This display of limelight meltdown would soon become Alexis' own undoing as the wasted wine spills unto a nearby fuse box, causing it to spark and igniting the egotist model to a blazing death in front of a shocked audience.

One year later, Lucia L’uccello, editor-in-chief of the country's top-selling fashion magazine, is about to run an issue dedicated to Alexis and her legacy on the anniversary of her death, thus she organizes a photoshoot starring her top models Eva Lantier and Irene del Lago in Alexis' original dresses. But on the night before the shoot, the dresses got stolen and from then on, those involved in the magazine are getting slaughtered one by one at the hands of a sinister mannequin-like femme fatale. Has Alexis come back from the grave somehow, seeking revenge? Or is somebody else equally depraved responsible for the increasing bodycount?

Written and directed by Ezequiel Endelman and Leandro Montejano, Crystal Eyes (2017) is a simple yet dedicated love letter to stylized 70s Italian gialli and crazy 80s slashers under the backdrop of haute couture's glamour and grit. Its relatively basic plot is virtually a barebone stroll through the usual hack-and-slash murder thriller, paced quickly enough to get the action flowing between its few slow moments and filmed vividly with as many Mario Bava and Dario Argento-inspired cinematography, particularly taking cues from Blood and Black Lace (1964) and Suspiria (1977) as lurid tints of blues and pinks, expressive editing and solid camerawork dominate the film for that fun, macabre arthouse look.

The direction does stride on a campy note, paired with a script that has its tongue firmly in its cheek and onscreen talents ranging from okay to overacting. Its a factor that basically held the film's supposed murder mystery back from being anywhere effective or deep, but the romp of entertainment this kitsch approach brings is fortunately not lacking, especially with its crazy, neon-colored murder set-pieces involving a killer that not only dresses and masks up like a showroom dummy, but also moves and poses (yes, poses) like one while killing! The predominantly female casts are also a real treat to watch, all brilliant in managing a wide variety of performances from sympathetic menaced models to fame-obsessed despite the hammy writing done for these characters and the overall tone of the flick.

Top it all with catchy 80s disco beat and retro-recognized hairdos and clothes, Crystal Eyes (2017) is, at the gist of it, a playful and substantial homage to both giallo and slasher cinema that highlights the good, the bad and the outrageous from both subgenres through an enjoyably undemanding plot. If you like shlocky yet stylish, giallo-lensed bodycounters like Stagefright (1987) and Murderock (1984), then you ought to give this Argentinian horror vogue fondue a try! 

Bodycount:

1 female caught on fire

1 male had his throat cut with a razor

1 female repeatedly stabbed with a hand drill

1 female killed offscreen, later seen beheaded

1 female stabbed to death with a glass shard

1 female drowned in a bath tub

1 female murdered offcamera

1 male bled to death from a wounded throat

1 female impaled on a crystal bird ornament

1 female found strangled with an IV chord

Total: 10

Cut Out The Cancer: Malignant (2021)

Malignant (2021)
Rating: ****
Starring: Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson and George Young

When it comes to James Wan, I like a lot of his horror films as I see the kind of fanfare I typically enjoy in my fright flicks: crazy B-grade goodness with creepy moments, fun jump scares and expressive camera work. Fortunately for us, Malignant, Wan's little supernatural love letter to giallo and slasher cinema (and then some), delivers all the goods you would expect in a great bodycounter with a little more extra for that positively insane movie experience!

Starting the scene in 1993, at the Simion Research Hospital, where a group of doctors go through a harrowing attack from an obscured patient named Gabriel who somehow has the ability to control electricity, broadcast thoughts through airwaves and overpower anyone twice their size. The staff eventually subdue the vile thing with a dart gun and, hoping to finally stop the patient's increasing threat, prepare Gabriel for surgery to "cut out the cancer".

Forwarding twenty-eight years later, a pregnant woman named Madison Lake gets the rough end of a strained and growingly abusive relationship when her husband Derek Mitchell beats her head against a wall, arguing at her about the futility of them having children since Madison appears to be prone to miscarriages. As night falls, something otherworldly invades the couple's residence and gruesomely murders Mitchell before going after Madison, knocking her unconscious during the attack. By the time she comes through, responding police has rescued her and she's taken to a nearby hospital, where she is informed by her sister Sydney that, devastatingly, her unborn baby didn't survive the ordeal. 

It wasn't until two weeks later though, when a recovering Madison returns to her home, that everything shifts for the far worse; she quickly learns that whatever has targeted her during that home invasion is far from done terrorizing her life as visions of savage murders and monstrously taunting phone calls start plaguing her days and nights. The more the bodycount rises, the more Madison and Sydney, as well as Kekoa Shaw and Regina Moss, a pair of detectives looking into the murders, start to piece together a grim puzzle and untangle a dark past involving medical horrors and a familiar violent entity that goes by "Gabriel".

Albeit the tone can be a bit (if not mostly) all over the place, it does befit the craziness Malignant wallows in and it is put to good use as Wan embraced the absurdity of the movie's premise to give us the outrageously energetic madness that is this hodge-podge of supernatural horror, brutal slashings, body horror, medical nightmare and, yes, even a little bit of creature feature. It isn't without its own rusty cogs and drawbacks, of course, such as the characters being a little dim, holes on the plot and the twist being anything but close to original (I can tell two other slashers that already did it, though I cannot say which as it'll spoil the fun. You might get it once you see it, though), but the manically stylized execution and wild, increasingly no-holds-barred direction undoubtedly make this film a real popcorn horror treat.

As the director himself put it, Malignant is a horror film made for horror fans, so it doesn't come as any surprise that it has genre homages in every nook and cranny; there are giallo influences pretty much present within the movie's cinematography as well as the villain's get-up and the home invasion around the first act even has its little slice of ghostly scares for that supernatural creepiness. But what really brought home the fun factor for me is the ridiculous levels of campy creative choices and hammy dialogue that certainly place this movie around the same plate as cheesed-up 80s slashers and monster movies, especially with its Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)-inspired victim/killer shared visions and a bodycount going monumental by the second half courtesy of a police station massacre that rivals The Terminator (1984) or Maniac Cop 2 (1990), committed through the hands of a maniac with a rather interesting concept and design focused on limberness and flexibility in all the wrong way. (Oh, and random electricity-based powers. That's a thing you get for being that, apparently) It's crazy, without a doubt, but as everything is done with a straight face and a semi-serious banter, the half-and-half subtle tongue-in-cheek is just made twice the better!

This being said, those looking to see sober scares may want to look elsewhere as the movie's clearly made with the intention to be darkly playful and littered with dismembered body parts. What else is there to say but James Wan really let it all loose in Malignant and I am happy to say that the resulting gory, campy and thrilling little devil is destined to be a bonafide cult classic!

Bodycount:

1 female smashed against a door, killed

1 female found murdered

1 female found murdered

1 male had his head internally decapitated

1 female beaten to death with a trophy

1 male stabbed and carved to death with a weaponized trophy

1 male found slaughtered to death with a weaponized trophy

1 female had her neck torn open

1 female clawed through the gut

1 female had her head stomped

1 female had her neck broken

10 females slaughtered offcamera

1 female had her eyes thumbed, used as a human shield and shot dead

1 male repeatedly beaten against iron cell bars

1 female found murdered

1 male found murdered

1 male found murdered

1 male stabbed through the back with a weaponized trophy

1 male had his throat slashed with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed through the gut with a weaponized trophy

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 male used as a human shield, shot dead

1 male stabbed through the neck with a weaponized trophy

1 female stabbed through the head with a weaponized trophy

4 victims seen murdered

1 male stabbed in the gut with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed through the neck with a weaponized trophy

1 male slashed across the neck with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed with a weaponized trophy

1 male stabbed with a weaponized trophy

1 male slashed across the throat with a weaponized trophy

2 males seen murdered

1 male had his pacemaker supernaturally cooked, explodes out of his chest

Total: 46

Also, "Cocky-Knockers"

Bite Sized Giallo Bits: Body Puzzle (1992)

Body Puzzle (Italy, 1992) (AKA "Misteria")
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Joanna Pacula, Tomas Arana and François Montagut

A 90s giallo affair from Demons (1985) director Lamberto Bava, Body Puzzle starts with a frustrated pianist (François Montagut) showing off some talent on the ivory keys as he recalls a tragic rainy night many years ago, involving a friend in a motorbike fatally crashing during a car chase. This flashback somehow ignites a murderous spark from the man and his first victim is a candy store owner who he knifes to death before slicing off an ear.

Tracy (Joanna Pacula), a young widow grieving over her brother's recent passing, gruesomely finds out that she has caught the attention of our killer when not only did she discovers the dismembered hearing organ in her fridge, but her late husband's grave was also found defiled and his body missing. This prompts Detective Michele (Tomas Arana), lead investigator of the case, to question her possible ties to the killer as it appears the madman has to have full access to her home in order to leave the body part so easily. Tracy cannot recall or think much of anybody mad enough to twistedly harass her like this, though she fears that she will be targeted next the further this escalates.

And, true enough, the killer strikes again and again, taking parts from each victim and leaving it for Tracy to find, even after she moved to her parent's mansion under heavy police surveillance. Just who is this killer and why is he offering her all of these freshly harvested body parts? 

As far as Italian giallo affairs go, Body Puzzle mostly hit its good notes when it comes to horror set-pieces, plenty of them coming from the murders committed by our seemingly random loon for how savage and dark yet outrageous they can get; one moment he's simply knifing a candy store owner to death, next would have him stalking a lady into a mall's loo to hack off her hand with a hatchet or offing a teacher in front of an entire classroom full of blind children listening to some badly narrated fairy tale. There's certainly a sense of finesse and black humor laid out in the film's direction to keep things as interesting as they can be, something I find passable even if the ridiculousness contrasts with the intriguingly twisted conundrum behind our killer's motive a tad too close into poking fun at itself sometimes.

At most, Body Puzzle tries to maintain a straight-faced story despite the cheesier instances. I love the mystery's concept wherein we already know what the killer looks like and that we're just left hanging as to why is he killing people to collect parts from them. Sadly, the abundance of plot holes and incredibly lackluster police work cheapened the impact of the story's development, more so when the movie finally reveals in the near end the twist of the whole situation. Without giving away much, it opened more questions than answer them, one of which being the ineptness of the coroner when they were embalming that body and how much legal trouble would they get for that mistake. 

Nevertheless, Body Puzzle remains wholly entertaining albeit its flaws when one would account its unintentional hilarity and cheese. I mean, how often do you find yourself watch a killer hide inside a freezer full of meat (and a corpsicle) for a surprise attack just on that slim chance someone might open it, or have sped-up shots of casual drives be passed as "car chases"? There are times half-witted jiffs like these are what save movies from being dull and this one definitely have more than enough to leave a good impression without completely straying away from being dark, macabre and stabby. 

Not exactly the finest giallo out of Bava's filmography (I would bravely give Midnight Killer (1986) and Delirium (1987) that title), but it's a divertingly fun puzzler of a horror thriller to a degree and that's okay on my book!

Bodycount:

1 male killed in a vehicular accident

1 male knifed to death

1 female had a hand chopped off with a hatchet, later found gutted

1 male castrated with a knife whilst swimming, bled to death

1 female had her throat cut, eyes plucked out

1 male crashes unto a car, killed in collision 

Total: 6

No Talking. No Texting. No Breathing: Al Morir La Matinée (2020)

Al Morir La Matinée (Uruguay/Argentina, 2020) (AKA "Red Screening", "The Last Matinee", "Bloody Matinee")

Rating: ****

Starring: Ricardo Islas, Luciana Grasso and Franco Duran

Sometimes you don't have to flex a high concept to make a fun horror movie. Sometimes you could just work it out with some guy with a bag full of tools, a fairly sizable bodycount and set of gnarly kills, all taking place in a old school movie theater. 

It's a rainy day in 1993 and young projectionist Ana (Luciana Grasso) is taking over her emphysema-stricken father's shift at the Cine Opera downtown theater, which is mostly empty that day. The few patrons who are staying, though, are treating themselves with a showing of Frankenstein, The Monster (With clips taken from Frankenstein: Day of the Beast (2011)) all the while going on with their own shenanigans of hooking up with girls, giving their dates a hand and, for one kid, sneaking in to brave a movie that might be too scary for him. Unbeknown to them all, a gloved maniac is staying in the very same theater and he has set his eyes on killing them all.

While it isn't new to have a slasher film set in a movie theater seeing we have titles like The Meateater (1979), Movie House Massacre (1984), Anguish (1987), and Matinee (1989) already, as well as a few horror titles opening with a murder taking place in crowded theaters such as He Knows You're Alone (1980) and Scream 2 (1997), none of them really took the sleek and gory approach as good as Al Morir La Matinée (2020). Basically, the film's direction is to have the hack and stab elements stripped down to its very core, a throwback of sorts with a simple premise and somewhat okay characters being themselves while a killer picks them off one by one. It never strays away from this approach. No twists or curveballs. Just have a psycho stalk the cinema and murder away anyone he can grab hold on to.

This, in turn, means that the characters can be lacking a bit of depth or personality, but the interactions between themselves and others do have their subtle, cheeky and cheesy moments, thus keeping their scenes far from being boring whenever the film focuses on them. It also helps that the group isn't that big so the focus isn't all over the place, as well as the fact that the plot is paced nicely between the horror and non-horror scenes, giving us enough time to take a quick breather before our killer decides who to stalk and stab next.

And speaking of which, Al Morir La Matinée (2020) will undoubtedly make a gorehound's day as not only is it very bloody, but there's also a strong Italian giallo influence in its cinematography so expect outrageous murder angles, evocative tinted lighting and stylized brutality that would make the likes of Argento or Bava proud. (Best of which being a smoker's demise when the killer went for their throat!) What further works here is that there's a sense of tension and creepiness to the killer's massacre, utilizing the nearly empty cinema setting to give our maniac all the darkened halls and rooms to sneak and prowl around, as well as use the screams from the movie playing to drown out the sound of his weapons and distract unsuspecting moviegoers from the murder happening just a few rows next to them. There's definitely a reason behind all of these methodic killings, but who this killer is or how did he ended up this way is something the movie's keeping to itself and I'm frankly okay with that.

Smoothened with a beatastic synth soundtrack and a strong finale involving a trio of potential survivors, Al Morir La Matinée (2020) is a real winner in my eyes as an old school-style slasher done right. It doesn't beat around the bush with too many layered side-plots and its brutal enough to keep a horror fanatic excited, all the makings of a bonafide slasher experience in my book! So whenever you find yourself a chance to see this, I guarantee you a keeper here!

Bodycount:

1 elderly male brained with a hammer

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male and 1 female had their heads skewered together with a broken long iron hook

1 male had his face bashed against the floor, stabbed with a knife

1 female had her chest and eye stabbed with a knife

1 male knifed to death

1 female had her head repeatedly crushed with a projector's lamphouse lid

1 male ran through with a broken long iron hook

Total: 9

Stick A Pin In An Understudy's Eye: Opera (1987)

Opera (Italy, 1987) (AKA "Terror At The Opera")

Rating: ***

Starring: Cristina Marsillach, Ian Charleson, Urbano Barberini

In a way, I understand the cult following this late-80s Dario Argento giallo made for itself as the film is a mad masterpiece visually, but this isn't to say I don't have my set of reservations about it.

Taking cues from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of The Opera, the film sets off when the leading lady of a production of Macbeth gets into a car accident after ranting about the opera's experimental direction. (Apparently she's not a fan of ravens. Or laser beams) This leads to a young understudy, Betty (Christina Marsillach), to step into the role, something she's not entirely thrilled about as she sees this as an omen of terrible things to come. The Macbeth curse, if you may.

And surely enough, as Betty sings her part that night, we see a gloved individual sneak into one of the closed-off opera boxes to get a better view of the show and we know this creeper is up to no good when they start to reminisce about that one time they attacked a woman while another was bound and forced to watch. Their little impromptu private viewing gets interrupted, however, when a staff finds them, leading to the gloved fella to brain the man dead against a coat hook, their struggle causing a set of stage lights to go hurling down.

Despite this fiasco, the show is a somewhat success, much to Betty's and the rest of the production team's delight, though the incident with the lights did lead to the police and an attending inspector to investigate and find the murdered staff. Freaked out by this, the young starlet chooses to cool off by hanging out with her stagehand boyfriend and make love with him at his apartment later that evening, only for it all end with Betty getting tied to a pillar and have pins placed under her eyes by the gloved and now-hooded prowler, forcing her to watch them brutally dispatch her lover before simply cutting her loose and exiting the scene.

In shock, Betty wanders off into the rainy night and gets picked up by the production's director, Marco (Ian Charleson), who happens to be driving by. As she confides with him of what just happened, Betty also vaguely recalls a nearly-forgotten childhood memory of the same hooded killer murdering her mother some time ago, which may mean that the killer knows her and it won't be long before they target her once again, killing anyone who gets in the way.

By the 1980s, a decent lot of Italian giallo films start to resemble less like crime pulp fiction as much of their focus swayed more on keeping up the splatter and kill count high, a response towards the rising popularity of American slashers around that decade. This is evident in Opera (1987)'s vividly bloody murder set-pieces, which is undoubtedly among director Dario Argento's most memorable contributions to giallo horror for their nightmarish nature and strikingly creative execution. While not overly gory, the bloodletting is generous and the attacks are simply ferocious, done with the key extravagance of a creative eye only the likes of Argento possess as his signature visuals of color tints and expressive camera work make their way into brutal close-ups of a stabbed jaw, or an amazing gun murder involving a slow-mo shot of a bullet going through a door's peephole, through an unfortunate victim's head, and finally to a nearby phone, destroying it.  

What doesn't work, however, is the overall quality of the film's mystery; with the way the plot flows through its run, Opera (1987) indefinitely shows little care about the suggested whodunits as there are hardly any police presence and very little of the characters introduced got any further development than a single (and often strange) note. (Though, I got to say I love the fact that we never saw the original leading lady's face. Makes me chuckle for reasons) This meant that our killer could have been anyone among the crowd, which cheapens the story halfway into an exploitative slasher flick, all the way down to its ridiculous climax of using vengeful ravens to out the killer, as well as the mountain of mad ramblings and expositions in an attempt to piece things together and look smart or dramatic. 

I'm also not a big fan of some of the murders being clashed with heavy metal for what I take is symbolic chaos. It's too obnoxiously on-the-nose and it just doesn't work for me, but even that's vanilla compared to my biggest gripe about the movie; you see, Opera (1987) could have ended in, well, the opera, as Betty is forced at gunpoint by the killer to enter a room filled with paperwork. The killer ties her up, locks the room and douses everything in gasoline, intent on ending both of their lives in what's best described as a lovelorn murder/suicide. A fire broke, an intense escape happens and then we're suddenly in the alps. The fucking alps. Weeks later. Without spoiling much, we have ten to fifteen minutes to spare (depending on which release you got), the killer is still out there and then we're treated to one of the most convenient endings I've seen in a giallo, ruining whatever gruesomely gothic atmosphere this movie had before we're in the fucking alps.

Opera (1987) is as standard as any late 80s bodycounter is and I'm willing to accept it as a flawed cult classic seeing all the best things about it is undeniably enjoyable. What it lacks in intrigue and a satisfying ending, it makes up with an eloquent aesthetic and carnal display of brutality and madness. See it if you like and maybe you'll enjoy it enough to compel somebody else to see it, hopefully without taping pins under their eyes...  

Bodycount:

1 male repeatedly beaten against a coat hook

1 female killed, method unknown (flashback)

1 female killed with a dagger (flashback)

1 male gets a dagger through the throat, stabbed to death

1 female strangled, stabbed in the chest with a pair of dressmaker shears

1 female shot through the head

1 male found knifed in the gut

1 female mentioned strangled

1 female shot

1 female found knifed on the chest

1 male knifed to death

Total: 10

A Drug Trip For Pounded Flesh: Death Walks At Midnight (1972)

Death Walks At Midnight (La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte) (Italy, 1972)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Nieves Navarro, Simón Andreu, Peter Martell

When fashion model Valentina (Nieves Navarro) volunteers to be an anonymous human guinea pig for a new experimental drug called HDS for her journalist friend Gio (Simon Andreu), she didn't expect seeing a vision of a girl getting her face caved in with a spiked iron gauntlet by a maniac in large shades. Worse even is that Gio didn't stay by his word to keep her anonymous, exploiting her freak out from the vision by taking and publishing pictures of the session, crafting a sensationalized tabloid piece for the city to see and read.

Rightfully angry about his deceit, Valentina confronts Gio about the stunt as it costs her a magazine job, vandalizing his office in the process, but she'll soon learn that something worse is stirring up for her; presumably to cover his tracks, the killer from Valentina's vision begins to stalk her, spiked gauntlet at hand, and has come pretty close to killing her in more than one time. When the police fails to properly recognize her stalker, it's up to Valentina to figure out who this is and stop him for good.

An intriguing labyrinthine plot is always a good expectation to meet from a well-crafted giallo and Death Walks at Midnight certainly delivers on that point; there's no mystery that killer from Valentina's drug trip actually exists, but their identity and motive is what keeps the story going, especially with the twists that the murder she saw was actually committed six months prior and, apparently, a different set of victim and murderer was involved. It's a twisty situation and the increasingly tangling dread subjected unto our lead makes for a good practice of paranoia that heightens the  curious nature of this conundrum, getting further muddled and oppressing the more the plot goes.

Despite the growing strangeness of the story, soon tainted with talks of suicidal women and drug addiction, Midnight impressively keeps a focused direction to all of these set-pieces and revelations, giving us a palpable stream of prowling sequences and an atmosphere of crippling helplessness that sustains the story with enough thrills and haunts to entertain its audience. A drawback here is that it can get too talky with its expositions, force-feeding us one info to the next before we can even properly sink everything in. There's also the matter that the movie nulls over exploring Valentina's relationships from her artist boyfriend and on-off journalist friend to a creepy talker and an inspector who believes she's holding out information from the crime, more often branching the story into character drama territories before kicking itself back into a murder mystery.

Nevertheless, it all ties up neatly at the final act in which the movie shift gear to a hammy action thriller with bad guy monologues, giggling assassins and a drawn-out brawl up at a rooftop in broad daylight. It's also in these parts wherein the kill count starts piling back up, the bloodiest it can get being another spiked gauntlet beating and one hilarious looking drop in which the unfortunate sap's brains get splattered out.

A crafty example of the giallo form, albeit less graphic and sleazy and putting more emphasis on curving plot lines, Death Walks at Midnight works an engaging enough tale that may have spiraled  out of control in some parts, its certainly isn't lacking on blood splatter and vintage cheese to occupy us in the midst of the madness. Rewarding us a fair payoff for sitting through its tricky little devil of a plot (I say fair because I don't even think they bother explaining how drugging Valentina got her seeing visions in the first place), it's an invitingly fun piece of Italian horror/thriller cinema well worth your time.

Bodycount:
1 female beaten to death with a spiked iron glove
1 female found knifed on the chest
1 male found dead with chest wound
1 male found knifed on the chest
1 female beaten to death with a spiked iron glove (flashback)
1 male falls off a building, brains splattered upon impact
1 male shot through the back
1 male shot
Total: 8

Under Shades As Big As Hatchets: Massacre (1989)

Massacre ("Massacro") (Italy, 1989)
Rating: **
Starring: Gino Concari, Patrizia Falcone, Silvia Conti

The film opens with a guy in large shades enjoying a morning car ride before spotting a hooker in the middle of the roadside. Thinking she scores a lonely dude looking for a quickie, the lady approaches the man in shades only to get a nasty surprise when he produces a switchblade and a hatchet. Off with her head and shift scene to a graveyard at night.

Here we now follow a filming crew busy creating a horror masterpiece (?) but the director isn't feeling any of this. Thinking the production needs to get in touch more with the otherworldly to get the eerie feeling right, he hires a medium and arranges a seance to be held at a local club. His crew, in the meantime, have their own drama and antics to take care of, including the abusive relationship between the producer and his bare-it-all wife, a drag show photo-shoot, and the movie's leading lady Jennifer getting hot and steamy with her boyfriend Walter, a police detective investigating the opening murder which he believes is connected to four others from the last few days.

At the night of the seance, hired medium Madam Yurich attempts to enlighten the crew by beckoning her usual spirit guide, but her session gets interrupted by an altogether different spirit. Something strong enough to knock everyone off their seats and cause a paranormal tremor. The seance is ended no soon after but, little do these people know, a massacre awaits them as they are now marked for death.

Released under a marketing ploy by producers Antonio Lucidi and Luigi Nannerini to have legendary Italian director Lucio Fulci stamp his name over their series of low-budget horror flicks, Andrea Bianchi's Massacre (1989) doesn't quite capture the same level of shock and sleaze many early day Italian giallo titles have. What it is able to do, though, is walk a line between cheesy bodycounting and convoluted murder mystery, only dragged down by a somnolent script where endless hammy dialogue overshadows horror scenes. This have the film hobbling its way through the possible suspects with police procedural and tantalizing character antics bearing little suspense to speak of, but this isn't to say it didn't try to break expectations.

The fact that we get to see the killer's identity as early as the pre-credit murder meant we're up to something a tad different for our mystery, and this is hammered further by a few more twists the further we go. It wasn't until Massacre (1989) reaches its climax that we get some stalk-and-stab action and blood work going, plus some bouncing topless nudity for that exploitation taste, though its somewhat neat ending felt unsuitably hokey with its last reveal and unanswered parting shot.

Nothing much else to speak of, frankly. Massacre (1989) is just too linear to be an old-school giallo, but it's punctuated with enough murders, cheese and curveball in its plot to be a fun occasional rental, or a must-have for Italian horror junkies considering its rarity.

Bodycount:
1 female gets her hand lopped off with a hatchet, decapitated
1 female killed offcamera, body found propped in a merry-go-round
1 female found skewered through a gate railing
1 male knifed to death
1 female had her throat sliced repeatedly with a knife
1 female murdered offcamera, later seen covered in wounds
1 male gets a hook to the neck
1 male repeatedly stabbed on the gut with a pick
1 male stabbed on the gut with a pick
1 male stabbed on the gut with a pick
1 male stabbed to death with a pick
1 male shot to death
Total: 12

Blinded Birds: Knife + Heart (2018)

Knife + Heart ("Un couteau dans le coeur") (France, 2018)
Rating: ****
Starring:  Vanessa Paradis, Nicolas Maury, Kate Moran

Summer of Paris, 1979; gay pornographer Anne Parèze (Vanessa Paradis) is terribly reeling from her recent breakup with her lover and editor Loïs (Kate Moran), and will soon have her wits and compassion tested when one of her actors, out one night to celebrate his latest film, was found killed at a leather-and-jockstrap bar. Initially unshaken by the news, Anne is instead inspired by the atrocity to create her most ambitious project, a pornographic murder thriller called Homocidal. This, of course, sparks disgust from some of her co-workers who are outraged by this exploit, as well as worry from the rest as their number starts to suspiciously drop like flies the more they proceed with the filming. It isn't until Anne gets an encounter with a masked figure that she starts to take this personally, but at that point, could it all be too late?

Drenched in neon glow and electronic synth, Knife + Heart (2018) strives to get the feel and look of an early 70s Mario Bava giallo fashioned around a stylized underbelly of pre-AIDS crisis France where sex and drugs were norms to be explored and enjoyed. With this, one would expect an exploitative sharp-edged horror thriller full of gore and explicit smut but, surprisingly with some softcore visuals and campy elements, the movie instead worked through its casts to tell its story and the result is a melancholic yet strangely warm mystery with a modest bodycount and broken sympathetic characters.

This is far from claiming Knife+Heart (2018) is a tamed beast, mind you, as much of the exploitative elements can still be seen around the first act where the film feels greatly like an adult slasher/giallo hybrid. A notable pair of rather brutal dispatches around this act have strong sexualized feels to them, juxtaposed only with enough stylized editing, camera work and scoring for an arthouse finish that kept the film decently away from being labeled as a simple yet violent erotica trash, but as the movie progresses into its second act which focus more on Anne's personal investigation on the killings, the direction have the murders parked back to let the story focus more on our lead's amateur snooping, as well as finding and fighting off her own personal demons.

It is around this part of the plot that the film dove into cheesier territories that honestly felt too fantastical compared to what's already happening and I'm not just talking about the spiritual symbolism that got chucked in for the film's need for sophisticated babbling, or that random genetic disease conflicting some random guy into having monstrous claws. Basically, there's hint that Anne have some sort of connection to the killer and it has something to do with a dream-like vision of a burning house she's been getting throughout the film. It is eventually explained what this burning house is alluding to, but I find this reveal awfully weak since it just sounded and felt too coincidental to earn any solid hold.

On the other hand, the reveal did give the killer a sympathetic backbone as, without spoiling much, it ties strongly to their motive as to why their going after Anne's filming crew. It is difficult to follow for a while as you work the pieces together but once the emotional finale runs its course, you can't but feel a tad sorry for the masked slasher considering what they have gone through.

Frankly, despite the convoluted nature of its mystery, Knife + Heart (2018) still works well enough as a horror movie thanks to Gonzalez’s and Mangione’s excellent scripting, making our queer characters little like the usual gay caricatures seen in these types of films and more like actual people with shades of insecurities and a need to feel loved and belonged. This could have been explored further with an edge seeing that the movie did hint some drama regarding social injustices against queer communities but the normalized treatment dulled the blade enough to the point this indifference more or less could've been dropped. Might be a good thing for some but I feel this was a missed opportunity to give some of our characters more angles to develop with.

Definitely for mature audiences for all of the boundaries considered and broken, with some good humor thrown in from time to time to keep the film far from being too serious and gloom, Knife + Heart (2018) is a surprisingly intriguing queer slasher that promises thrilling murders, wholesome laughs and genuine heartbreak. Not everybody's cup of tea, but a definite keeper for genre fanatics!

Bodycount:
1 male repeatedly stabbed in the rectum with a bladed dildo
1 male unknowingly fellates a bladed dildo, knifed through the head
1 male repeatedly knifed on the back
1 male caught on fire (flashback)
1 male found bleeding to death from a cut throat
1 female knifed on the chest
1 male knifed to death
Total: 7