Following the gruesome gore-fests of Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) and City of the Living Dead (1980), director Lucio Fulci toned down the violence and adapted the short story of the same name by Edgar Allen Poe. The film, that bares little resemblance to Poe's original story, has Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck) travel to a rural English village to investigate a string of strange deaths and occurrences. Also arriving is photography student Jill (Mimsy Farmer), who finds a strange recording device in a graveyard that traces back to the eccentric Professor Robert Miles (Patrick Magee, the vengeful assault victim from A Clockwork Orange (1971)). Miles is trying to contact the dead, but it is his strange black cat that seems to be committing the murders, and seems to be as murderous towards its owner than it is to its selected victims.
This is a huge change of tone from what I've experienced previously from the Italian 'Godfather of Gore' (surely that title belongs to H.G. Lewis?), and shares more in common with Hammer's horror output and the various Roger Corman adaptations of Poe's work. Yet although the tone makes for a refreshing change, this is still a plodding and silly film, and is far from the director's best work. I've already voiced my puzzlement at how a cat can kill a human in my review of The Corpse Grinders (1971), and the same happens here. A man gets attacked in the street repeatedly by a lunging cat, and I couldn't help but shout abuse at the screen as he flailed about pathetically.
The film is beautifully shot though, and if one thing can be said about Fulci, is that he knows how to shoot a smoky graveyard. His best works The Beyond (1981) and City of the Living Dead involved scenes of beautiful sepia and eerie widescreen shots of various spooky locations, and The Black Cat is no different. The early scene involving Miles attempting to communicate to the dead in a graveyard has a panning shot so beautiful that it almost cemented an extra star onto my rating. But the sheer silliness and tedium of the rest of the film brought me back to reality.
Following the recent re-vists of two of his most iconic characters, John Rambo and Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone continued his oddly touching nostalgia trip to the heydey of his career with this homage to the glory days of the action film, the 1980's and the early 1990's. It was a time where anything from a kidnapped daughter to the overhauling of a military dictator could be solved by removing your upper clothes, adding a touch of oil, and finding the biggest guns you can get your hands on, and possibly the only era that would have ever allowed the likes of Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris to become movie stars. Of course, Stallone was one of the big three that formed Planet Hollywood (along with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger) and was one of the undisputed stars of the time, but with the problem of age (and lack of acting ability) creeping up with him, Stallone's roles have become thin of late. It seemed the perfect time to remind us just why people loved him, by directing this balls-out love love letter to carnage, and, like Rocky Balboa (2006), it's actually pretty good.
The Expendables, a group of bikers and mercenaries, are sent by the mysterious 'Mr. Church' (Bruce Willis) to overthrow the dictator of Vilena. The groups' leader, Barney Ross (Stallone), and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) travel for research, and discover that the country's dictator, General Garza (David Zayas) is merely a controlled figurehead for ex-CIA operative James Munroe (Eric Roberts). Things quickly get out of hand, but the two manage to escape amidst an array of explosions. Falling for their informer Sandra (Gisele Itie), who also happens to be Garza's daughter, Ross decides to return to finish the job, and this time taking martial artist Yin Yang (Jet Li), gun-nut Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and bomb expert Toll Road (Randy Couture). But ex-Expendable Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren) - recently dispensed for almost hanging a captive on a previous mission and for drug use - travels to Vilena to work for Munroe.
Anyone going into this film wanting or expecting an engrossing storyline, a witty script, or anything resembling character development, will be sorely disappointed. This is 100% dedicated to gun porn, explosions, and homoerotic exchanges, precisely the thing that the early films of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme were known and loved for. What it does have however, is a lot of heart. Stallone is undoubtedly a romantic, and he has formed a cast full of old-school action stars (Mickey Rourke has en extended cameo as Tool, and Schwarzenegger briefly appears in a scene that made me oddly giddy), as well as some of the new faces of straight-to-video, sorry, DVD (wrestler Steve Austin also appears as Munroe's head grunt Paine).
However, The Expendables seems to suffer most from the thing that noticeably plagues modern action films, and that is badly filmed and confusing action scenes. Rather than actually showing the fighting (and there are many here that deserve better, namely Jet Li), they fill the screen with a mixture of blurs, shaky hand-held camerawork, and rapid editing. It seems that Stallone thinks that as long as the audiences' eyes are busy, regardless as to whether they know what it happening, then they will be happy. And a lot of the macho talk gets quite tiresome quickly, and as token black guy Hale Caesar talks about his gun like it is a girl in that "hell ye-ha!" sort-of-way, the film came across as nothing more than a walking erection.
Yet with a film put together with such genuine heart, I found it impossible not to like, and it certainly transported me back to my childhood when the action wave was still in full flow, and I was obsessed with the likes of Commando (1985). I'm pleased that a sequel is also not far off, and the added casting of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris, as well as an extended role for Schwarzenegger (who now has time for acting given his political career has thankfully ended), has me obviously excited.
The film begins with facially-scarred Miguel (Alexander Waechter) raping and murdering a girl with a pair of scissors at a masquerade party. He is institutionalised for a number of years, but then released into the care of his sister Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff), whom he used to have a incestuous relationship with. Manuela runs a language Boarding School with her wheelchair-bound mother, who refuses to name Manuela in her will. When Manuela refuses Miguel's advances to resume their relationship, the friends of Angela (Olivia Pascal), whom Miguel's seems to be intrigued by, start disappearing. Angela knows they are being killed and even witnesses a murder, but no-one believes her.
When going into a horror film directed by exploitation legend Jess Franco, you know what you're in for. Lots of blood, lots of sleeze, and in particular, lots of tits. Bloody Moon does not fail to disappoint on this front, but unfortunately, it disappoints on practically every other front. On IMDb, he is credited with 194 titles as director, and he has churned out as many exploitation titles as I have shits after a curry. While I have only seen a small handful of his films (all pretty bad), this is undoubtedly the worst I've seen. As well as ripping off other, more impressive slasher films (Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood (1971) and Blood and Black Lace (1964) are two that I noticed), the film is poorly thrown together in a manner to get as much blood and breasts as possible. While that's not a terribly bad or unoriginal idea, all the in-between parts are painfully tedious and dull.
If you're in it for the blood, you won't be disappointed. There's plenty of outlandishly staged set-pieces here, most notably the scene in which a woman is decapitated by a power saw. The hilarious thing is that the woman volunteers to be tied down in an abandoned lumber mill, inches away from the giant saw, by a masked man. She says she finds it kinky. Well, maybe she deserves to die for being so fucking stupid. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention or I was so bored I was considering slitting my wrists, but when the big revelation came at the climax, I failed to see why the killer had to kill the girls in order to achieve their goal. Again, Franco was thinking blood and boobs, and all logic went out the window. Perhaps not the worst Video Nasty on the list so far, but it's certainly up there.
Upon receiving a request for re-enforcements from brilliant scientist Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), General Fogerty (David McMahon) dispatches a U.S. Air Force team led by Captain Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) to a remote area of Alaska. Upon arrival, they learn that a strange aircraft has been discovered built of alien materials to which they gain access and discover a giant frozen alien lifeform. They bring it back to their base, where a careless soldier allows it to thaw, and the crew find themselves under siege from the giant monster that doesn't seem to be able to be killed. Soon, Carrington and Hendry find themselves at loggerheads, as Carrington wishes to preserve the beast for scientific research, and Scott sees it as a threat to humanity and will stop at nothing to destroy it.
I was surprised at how different this throwback sci-fi is to its much more popular and admittedly vastly superior remake The Thing (1982). John Carpenter's re-imagining is more sophisticated and memorable, but Christian Nyby's original, based on John W. Campbell's novel Who Goes There?, has a lot going for it and is one of the more exciting and politically-charged of the 1950's sci-fi's. Nyby directed under the watchful eyes of Howard Hawks, so naturally, this is a very American tale, and very much a product of its era. In an America wary of Communist infiltration, Cornthwaite's Dr. Carrington is portrayed as a maniacal madman, who is willing to sacrifice the lives of his colleagues for scientific data, whereas Tobey's Hendry is the square-jawed American hero, who sees the need to stamp out the threat before it can bare its influence across America. Obviously this is a bunch of nonsense from an ignorant time, but it cements the film as being historically and politically significant, as well as being extremely good fun.
Little is seen of the 'Thing' itself (played by western legend James Arness - who passed away last year), which allows the film to build far more tension than the many rubber-suited creature-features that were churned out in the 1950's. It is usually hidden away with shadows so the film never feels silly, and really makes an impact in one impressive scene which sees Scott set it ablaze. It is a fully-body burn, something which is extremely dangerous even by today's standards. An un-involving romantic sub-plot between Hendry and Carrington's secretary Nikkie Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan) aside, the film breezes by and is very good fun, and if you can see past all the political nonsense, then this is one of the best of the B-movie sci-fi/horrors to come out of the era.
Nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, this HBO documentary follows Nathaniel Kahn as he tries to discover more about the father he never knew, the great architect Louis Kahn. Dying alone of a heart attack in a train station 25 years before, Louis Kahn was left unclaimed for days due to him mysteriously blacking out information on his passport. He was married, but not to Nathaniel's mother - she was one of numerous mistresses he had during his later years. The film takes Nathaniel on a journey where he interviews friends, family, and colleagues, as well as visiting some of his father's spectacular works.
The father-son story of discovery has been done numerous times in cinema, to various degrees of success, but I've never experienced a film so personal. It is peppered with scenes of raw emotion, including a moving scene where Nathaniel reveals himself to be Louis' son to a man that knew :ouis well. Yet amongst all the emotion, the stand-out scenes are the sections where he visits his fathers works. The Salk Institute is simply an outstanding piece of art, and the film captures it beautifully in all its glory. Even though it is arguable that such a journey needs such a detailed account, I found the film slightly overlong, and I found my interest sliding at times. But this is a film that successfully explores the complexities of the man, whether you feel he was a philanderer, a tyrant, or a troubled genius, through the eyes of a son who wants to see good in and love his father. I have no doubt that Louis Kahn, were he still alive, would have been deeply moved.
Punk high school teacher Rainer Wagner (Jurgen Vogel) draws autocracy in project week, and decides to teach his students about dictatorship and how Nazi Germany manipulated the population. He encourages his students to create a club, that they later name 'The Wave', that promotes equality. He establishes himself as their leader and dictator by demanding the students stand up when they are to speak, and refer to him as Herr Wagner rather than Rainer, and also re-arranges the seating by placing the children with good grades with those who are underachieving. Soon enough, the students become heavily involved in the project, creating a logo and holding members-only parties and rallies, and Rainer finds his grip slipping on his students, as The Wave starts to spiral out of control.
Inspired by history teacher Ron Jones' 1967 social experiment called The Third Wave, the film portrays how the masses can easily be manipulated into group thinking, in modern Germany who think the idea of history repeating itself as ridiculous. What starts out as an innocent club soon turns into a fascist regime, with non-members being victimised and segregated, in an obvious parallel to the way the S.S. used threatening tactics to anyone they believe to be against the Nazi Party. The film is very intriguing in this sense, in the same way as Oliver Hirschbiegel's thrilling Das Experiment (2001) showed how we can be tricked into playing social roles, but I felt the film went a bit too far towards the end and became somewhat unbelievable. But the performances are solid (especially by Vogel) and the film is well-scripted and moves at a fast pace, so it is a pity it loses its grip at the climax. A solid film that should be watched by anyone interested in social and political thinking.
"Don't molest little boys!" shouts Super's mentally unstable protagonist Frank (Rainn Wilson) after splitting a paedophile's head open with a wrench. After recent 'superhero' films Watchmen (2009) and Kick-Ass (2010) explored the mentality behind the superhero/vigilante idea to various degress of seriousness, Super arrived in 2010 with yet another take on it, again with a different tone. While Watchmen held a mirror to the audience and created a vast and complex alternative world that portrayed its 'superheros' as as pornographic as they are borderline psychopathic, and Kick-Ass revelled in it's bloodshed and questioned audiences' enjoyement of the slaughter, Super does both but is more interested in its emotionally damaged and extremely lonely main character who thoroughly believes that his actions are justified.
Frank is a short-order cook whose recovering drug-addict wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) disappears from their apartment taking all her belongings with her. She seems to have disappeared with her sleazy club owner boss Jacques (Kevin Bacon), who is on the verge of a large heroin deal. After seeing a crappy low-budget Christian message television programme where superhero the Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion) teaches Christian values to tempted high-school kids, Frank makes himself a costume and dubs himself the Crimson Bolt, taking out bad guys with a pipe wrench. He becomes a cult vigilante, and the object of comic book store owner's Libby's (Ellen Page) curiosity. The two form a partnership, but Libby's hyperactivie personality and eagnerness for bloodshed becomes a problem.
The film's main problem is the uneveness of its tone, which switches from dark indie drama to cartoonish comedy violence to disturbing character study. Like Kick-Ass, the film is extemely violent, yet Super is set in a murky, grainy reality as opposed to Kick-Ass's very colourful, comic-book world. This, for me, made the film more of an entertaining curiosity rather than the film it perhaps could have been. I cannot deny that the film is entertaining though. Opening with a nicely animated credit sequence, the film moves quickly and is anchored by an impressive performance by Wilson, who juggles comedy with a dark intensity. Page almost steals the show as his sidekick who is as sexy as she is bat-shit crazy. After all the carnage, the film is wrapped up nicely with a sweet and really quite moving ending. Whatever you think of the film, it will no doubt make you want to shout "shut up, crime!" whenever someone next pisses you off.
In 1929, the art world and movie-going audiences were shocked to the core when Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali teamed-up to make the short surrealistic masterpiece Un Chien Andalou. Scenes of eye-slitting and ants crawling out of open palms caused revulsion and awe in equal measures. A year later, Bunuel and Dali planned another surreal satire, but the two had a fall-out, leading to Bunuel taking the solo reigns and using his film-making know-how to make a slightly more accessible and narrative-driven piece, and this time feature-length (well, 63 minutes). The result caused chaotic scenes of rioting, violence and destruction upon its premiere. Bunuel must have been laughing his ass off.
The film is basically a collection of small vignettes that revolve around a couple, the Man (Gaston Madot) and the Young Girl (Lya Lys) who are passionately in love. Yet their frequent attempts at expressing their love are repeatedly thwarted by various groups and people. There is also a short documentary about scorpions, a bourgeois party where a small boy is shot with a shotgun and a serving woman gets blown out of the kitchen by a fire, and an epilogue detailing an 120-day orgy (a reference to the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom) which leads to the death and scalping of the participating women.
I have to admit that whilst viewing this mind-fucking masterpiece, I was dumbfounded as to what was going on or what the film was trying to get across. Yet like all great art, it stayed with me, and the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. The message seems to be how society and religion can suppress natural sexual urges and expression to the point that it can cause violence within humanity. The film is full of sexual imagery - most memorably in the scene where the Young Girl, seemingly nymphomaniacal in her lust for the Man, performs fellatio on the toe of a statue. The camera then amusingly cuts to the statues face, as if we are expecting a reaction from it.
It is relentless in its mockery of religion and the upper classes. In the most shocking scene (even by today's standards), we are shown an idealistic portrayal of a father-and-son. The father sits holding an object (I think he is rolling a cigarette) in the scenic garden of their home, while their son playfully hops about him. His son then knocks the object out of his hand and runs off, causing the father to fume. The father then picks up his shotgun and shoots the boy dead. And then shoots his limp body again. The son seems to represent free-spirit and the father society, and it seems the message here is that if you refuse to conform to society's wishes, then society will crush you. A relatively simple point sledge-hammered home. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to call this one of the most important films ever made, as it pushed the boundaries of what was possible at the time and remains just as shocking and as ground-breaking as it was 82 years ago.
The idea of sexual addiction has, at least up to now, been viewed by most as a pathetic way for celebrities to justify their debauchery and sleazy activities. It has never been given a serious portrayal in film (not that I can remember), but this has not stopped director Steve McQueen tackling the subject in his second feature, after 2008's quite sensational Hunger. He approaches the subject head-on, and rather than trying to investigate what causes the problem, he instead shows it for what it is, personified in Michael Fassbender's emotionally damaged Brandon.
Unknown to the people who claim to know him, Brandon has a seemingly high-paid office job and an ocean-view apartment. This life of emotional distance helps him to indulge in his sexual addiction, where prostitutes, online porn, bar pick-ups, and daytime wanks-at-work provide temporary relief for his ever-growing sexual urges. His life of routine is rudely interrupted with the arrival of his equally damaged sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), who throws Brandon's life upside down. At first the two seem to get on, but after Sissy sleeps with Brandon's boss David (James Badge Dale), and then catches Brandon masturbating, his once-private affliction is revealed.
Similar to Hunger, Steve McQueen takes a very artistic approach, breaking the film up with long moments of silence and panning shots, and in one bravura sequence, the camera follows a raging Brandon as he jogs through the New York night, as the neon-lit city opens up before him. Yet it's the character development and the truly exceptional lead performance by Fassbender that makes the film, as given that Brandon is really quite an unlikeable character, in Fassbender's hands he is sympathetic and tragic, and McQueen's and Abi Morgan's script make him a fully-realised, and utterly fascinating character.
It would be easy to make Brandon one-dimensional, but as the film goes on, we learn more about him. He fantasises about office colleague Marianne (Nicole Beharie) and the two go out on a dinner date. Brandon talks about his inability to understand or maintain a relationship, which perplexes Marianne, yet the two still seem to hit if off. Later, on a second date, the two are tearing each others clothes off, when Brandon seems to look her meaningfully in the eyes, but he is unable to sustain an erection. He tells her to leave, then in the next scene, and not long after his encounter with Marianne, he is having hard sex with a prostitute up against the window. It is clear that any idea of anything remotely meaningful terrifies Brandon, and therefore turns him off.
Sissy is equally as intriguing, but is given much less screen time. Her encounter with the truly loathsome David reveals that something happened in the past, possibly involving both siblings, yet like Brandon, Sissy reveals nothing. Mulligan has already established herself as an effective actress, but her character serves more as a way to develop Brandon, who is in every scene. The two siblings' backgrounds are not revealed so we are left to guess how to the two have become so damaged, but the film is much more effective this way. It can be a hard watch at times, but Shame is a fascinating exploration of a relatively unexplored subject matter.
In 1994, three speleologists discovered a cave in Vallon-Pont-d'Arc which is now considered one of the most important archaeological and artistic discoveries in history. Inside the cave, the walls were covered with the earliest known cave paintings yet to be discovered. Pictures of animals and one of a woman date back as far as 30,000-32,000 years ago, and due to a landslide that sealed the cave, has remained untouched until its re-discovery. Naturally, the cave intrigued film-maker and pioneer of the eccentric Werner Herzog, who was given special permission to explore and film inside the cave. He and two assistants take us throughout the cave and show us the beautiful art, as well as some preserved child footprints and skulls of now-extinct cave bears.
Herzog has made many fine features in his time (his most notable work involves Klaus Kinski), yet it is always his documentaries that get me excited, as no-one seems to be able to tackle a subject matter with the same kind of fascination and unorthodox approach as the great German. He does not disappoint here, as Cave of Forgotten Dreams contains his trademark unusual narration, as well as interviews with some eccentrics. The first section of the film focuses mainly on Herzog's visit of the cave, as we are shown the strict rules the visitors must abide by such as not touching anything and staying on the 2-foot wide walkway that has been created through the cave. Considering he didn't have the space for a large camera, Herzog and his crew do magnificently in capturing the beauty and mysticism of the cave. He also filmed in 3-D, which I would imagine would be quite exceptional, but unfortunately I only saw it in 2-D.
Herzog tries to paint a larger picture (no pun intended) than just the cave itself, interviewing scientists, art historians, archaeologists, and even a master perfumer, who tries to sniff out other collapsed caves in the surrounding areas. Whether Herzog brings it out in them, or he simply bends the truth for artistic purposes, a lot of the people in the film seem just as strange as Herzog himself. This is common in his films, notably Grizzly Man (2005) and Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998), but he is not fooling the audience, he is simply allowing them to share his vision. The film does go off focus a little at the end, as it seems to jump to different subjects in a haphazard manner, but this is fascinating and beautiful nonetheless. Not quite as moving and tragic as Grizzly Man, or as visually poetic as Encounters At the End of the World (2007), but this is essential viewing for fans of Herzog, history and art alike.
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Country: Canada/USA/France/Germany/UK Rating: ****
Japanese director Sadao Yamanaka made 24 films in his short seven year career. He was a key figure in establishing Japanese period films, along with fellow cinema giants Ozu, Mizoguchi and Naruse. When World War II came, he was drafted into the Imperial Army, and tragically lost his life in 1938 at the age of 28. After the war ravaged key cities in Japan, most of his films were destroyed or lost, and now only three survive (in near-complete forms). God bless Masters of Cinema, the UK's answer to America's Criterion Collection, for remastering and re-introducing this forgotten gem to the world and giving it a DVD release, following years of obscurity.
The film focuses on a poor area of Tokyo in the late 18th century, where the penniless ronin Unno (Chojuro Kawarasaki) lives amongst the lower classes, struggling to find work. He is desperate to hand a letter written by his late father to the local gang boss, who repeatedly snubs and undermines him. The town is already in shock and mourning following the third suicide in recent weeks, so hairdresser Shinza (Kan'emon Nakamura) throws a party to boost the spirits of the local samurai, yet finds himself falling foul of the local gang for holding an unauthorised gambling party in their territory.
For all the usual gentle beauty of Japanese cinema of the period that is so prominent here, Humanity and Paper Balloons is shockingly pessimistic. The film begins and ends with suicide, and that feeling of unavoidable tragedy prevails throughout the film, as we see samurai reduced to desperate and begging hangers-on. Yamanaka makes clear his opinion of society in feudal Japan, portraying it as a rather savage and hopeless place to exist for the lower classes. Perhaps Yamanaka foresaw Japan's ill-fated siding with the Nazi's which saw Japanese society obliterated by fire-bombings and nuclear weapons. Yet it still manages to be humorous in that typical kooky Japanese way, in the same vein of some of Kurosawa's lighter films. Given this was Yamanake's final film before he went off to fight the war, it seems a fitting exit to a short career, yet tragic given that (judging from this) Yamanaka could have gone on to become a giant in his field. A slight, yet powerful film.
We are only able to interpret from a piece of art what we bring to it. Our own personal knowledge is all we have to unravel, or judge information, when confronted with something that requires diagnosis. Whilst there is limited writing on this obscure Macedonian film, what is written I have found not to be what I considered whilst viewing it. The film's intention I gleaned, began with it's own remission, with a reference to the old testament. This is followed with a scene apparently set in 2019, where Kuzman (Nikola Ristanovski), is gunned down in a post apocalyptic desert, only to survive these apparently severe wounds. Kuzman then has to battle with heavy weaponry with the "Man With Green Hair" (Toni Mihajlovski), and ends the first sequence bathing with a naked woman who has just dropped a basket of apples into the water (is this a reference to the garden of Eden?).
Before the second half appears, we are shown a wedding in 1900 that results in the killing of the groom. After this we are introduced to a man dressed as Santa Claus (Lazar Ristovski) who travels back to his apartment on the 31st of December 1999. At his apartment he finds that a wake for what appears to be a military official is underway and the members of the party are dismayed to see his entry. This is the extent of my formal explanation of "what happens on the screen". I spent the majority of the film in confusion. I perhaps need to research the history of Macedonia (war has always been prevalent in the Balkans - but that is all I know). And this is why I am standing by my opening sentence, and therefore will state what I took from this bizarre but interesting film, is what very limited knowledge I had to begin with.
I personally felt that this often violent piece of cinema was attempting to break down, and possibly eliminate icons that should have dissipated before the 20th century even began. The first half I felt was Jesus - his body is unbreakable, despite being shot on many occasions, he simply rises from this - but, like Adam in the garden of Eden, he is tempted by the body of woman. In the last sequence, Santa occupies his apartment, which is completely white - perhaps a signal to a waiting room of death - where the occupants degenerate into madness and violence, and death to the real is the only outcome. This brings me to the interpretation that I have of this apparently confusing and a seeming clash of disparate ideologies, comes into effect. I see this as an analysis of the need for a destruction of false idols, icons, or illusions.
Unfortunately, it is the illusory - i.e. the image of Santa Claus - that will prevail at the end of the 20th century. We are left with the concept that the fantasy of the man in red, will always prevail over what is real will always take precedent over the realities of our constantly complex world. But again, in conclusion, I probably have this completely wrong, and can only speculate over the historical aspects that I have no knowledge of. In terms of the films overall result, it is certainly interesting, and absolutely different. It is also wonderful to look at - it's aesthetic seeped in often clinical beauty.
This is a huge change of tone from what I've experienced previously from the Italian 'Godfather of Gore' (surely that title belongs to H.G. Lewis?), and shares more in common with Hammer's horror output and the various Roger Corman adaptations of Poe's work. Yet although the tone makes for a refreshing change, this is still a plodding and silly film, and is far from the director's best work. I've already voiced my puzzlement at how a cat can kill a human in my review of The Corpse Grinders (1971), and the same happens here. A man gets attacked in the street repeatedly by a lunging cat, and I couldn't help but shout abuse at the screen as he flailed about pathetically.
