Romano Scavolini's Dog Tags (1988)

During the Vietnam War, two soldiers successfully raid a P.O.W. camp and free the captives. No rescue helicopter awaits and the motley crew is diverted upon another mission--reclaim the classified contents of a downed helicopter and deliver them to the top brass. Dejected, wounded, and despondent, the soldiers find the classified cache and decide to keep it for themselves.Romano Scavolini has made some interesting films in his career, notably his 80s work, especially Nightmare in a Damaged Brain (1981). Spirits of Death (1972) is also worth mentioning. It's a fantastically surreal giallo with some great atmosphere and imagery. Scavolini's Dog Tags (1988) isn't shy with the surrealism and Baird Stafford from Nightmare along with Clive Wood star as the soldiers who set out on the reluctant mission.Informed by Scavolini's own experiences with the Vietnam War, Dog Tags is a cut above like-80s Italian action/war films. The surreal imagery of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) is a heavy influence seen throughout Dog Tags; however, Scavolini's surrealism isn't necessarily a comment just upon war. The imagery is truly alien in the most literal sense. Many of the scenes are other-worldly in their appearance. The brutal violence is delivered with machetes and hidden traps instead of clunky machine guns. No shortage of loud explosions though. However, this film feels more like a horror film with most scenes shown at night. John Scott provides a perfect accompanying dark synth score.

The war serves really as a backdrop for a tight lean action film. Although it's probably inspired by real events, Dog Tags is about the down-and-out, who see their one opportunity to come up. The soldiers' own avarice doesn't match up to the greed of the top brass: they'll kill for the cache. The soldiers struggle to make their way and continue to decline. In a very satisfying ending, tied to the film's title, they eventually disappear, like ghosts in the night. So like the Vietnam War, perhaps there was more hidden under the surface than many will know, and if the opportunity to see Dog Tags appears, it should be seized upon greedily.

Jacques Scandelari's Victims of Vice (1978)

Jacques Scandelari's scandalous Victims of Vice (1978) is an always sleazy slice of life of after-hours Paris. Young, beautiful, and bright-eyed Micheline (Odile Michel) hooks up with hairdressers, Patrick (Patrick Olivier) and Peggy (Marie-Georges Pascal), only to have her curiosities turned into degradation and possibly murder.
Okay, alliterative adjectives aside, I couldn't resist, Victims of Vice cannot really be taken seriously as an expose of a hidden sex scene in underground Paris nor can it be taken seriously as a police procedural drama. Patrice Valota is Boris, a sergeant on the vice squad, and the homicide squad puts him on the case after the film's opening murder of a beautiful blonde woman, shot with a shotgun, wearing only a raincoat. The victim had a unique drug in her system, one which initially causes heightened orgasms but eventually causing irreparable brain damage. Perhaps they could later receive treatment in Jean Rollin's Night of The Hunted (1980). In any case, Boris is more enthralled with Annie (Florence Cayrol), a dancer at an upscale Gentleman's club. The first two-thirds of the film treats the viewer to Micheline's journey into her new sexual experiences from menage-a-trois to exhibitionism to eventually being "given" to M. Vaugoubert de Saint-Loup (Jacques Berthier), a wealthy businessman who has a curious sexual appetite.Jacques Scandelari made his last film in 1979, around the death of the Sexual Revolution, and fittingly, Victims of Vice is a chronicle of sexual escapades designed more to titillate the viewer than to create a coherent drama. To Scandelari's credit he excels at the photography, lighting, and atmosphere. I've seen little of his work, and his most notable film is seemingly De Sade 76 (1971). The small performance by Marie-Georges Pascal, as Peggy, is welcome, as she was wonderful in Jean Rollin's terrific Grapes of Death (1978), in which she shared screen time with Patrice Valota. In a creative twist, Boris asks Annie to go undercover to entice M. Vaugoubert de Saint-Loup. Annie executes the task masterfully. In the best sequence of the film and the film's sexiest, Annie turns the tables and submits Saint-Loup with a powerful showing of her sexuality. This sequence follows a somewhat funny series of jokes, wherein every time Boris attempts to initiate a little loving with Annie, there's a loud knock on the door, usually Boris's partner to pull him out onto the street. The last third of the film stands out but doesn't save it. Micheline is truly a victim, but Victims of Vice doesn't give you any reason to think so. All of the interesting themes remain hidden, but the flesh certainly doesn't. Like or unlike Micheline, Victims of Vice is only for the curious.

Sergio Martino's Beyond Kilimanjaro, Across the River of Blood (1990)

Richard Hatch is Tony La Palma and he's hiding out in Africa. He doesn't like the ivory poachers and helps a young boy who's been orphaned after his parents die of leprosy. He's also sleeping with casino-lounge singer, Giulia (Eleonora Brigliadori), another expatriate, who loves La Palma, although she doesn't know much about his past. That is until baddie David Brandon as Jagger appears on the scene--he knows about La Palma's past and is about to disrupt the party.With more continent hopping than Crocodile Dundee (1986), the legendary Sergio Martino delivers a film with a terrific title, Beyond Kilimanjaro, Across the River of Blood (1990).Other than that, this one's terrible.

Beyond Kilimanjaro, Across the River of Blood had its origin in a story by Sergio's brother, the legendary Luciano Martino, who produced not only many of Sergio's most notable films of 70s Italian genre cinema (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971); All the Colors of the Dark (1972); Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972); and Violent Professionals (1973)) but a number of other notable Italian genre films (Romolo Guerrieri's The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968); Umberto Lenzi's So Sweet... So Perverse (1969); Duccio Tessari's Tony Arzenta (1973); and Umberto Lenzi's Almost Human (1974)). Sergio had also directed a couple of wonderful 80s low-budget films, the post-apocalyptic 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983), with Michael Sopkiw, and Terminator-riff, Hands of Steel (1986), starring Daniel Greene, who also appears in Kilimanjaro.


The most apt word to describe this film is sputtering: Kilimanjaro starts up, makes a lot of noise, surges forward a little bit, dies, and then repeats. For example, Jagger blackmails Giulia for fifty-thousand dollars or he'll reveal La Palma's whereabouts to the wrong people. Giulia hooks up with another expatriate, an ex-gambler from Las Vegas hiding out in Africa, who works in the casino, and the two conspire and come up with the money. Giulia pays Jagger. Of course, Jagger doesn't go away and the small episode is only a segue way to another one, the flashback to La Palma's past.


Richard Hatch spent the majority of the 70s and 80s in American television, his most notable role being Captain Apollo in Battlestar Galactica. He bears a strong resemblence to Tim Matheson. Eleonora Brigliadori's and David Brandon's subsequent work to Kilimanjaro, for both, has been in European television. Brigliadori had made a previous appearance in Lucio Fulci's The New Gladiators (1984) and Brandon had previously appeared in Lamberto Bava's Until Death (1987) and Delirium (1987). He would make a very notable appearance as the scummy stage-director in Michele Soavi's wonderful Stagefright (1987). Hatch, Brigliadori, and Brandon give competent performances with the shallow script. There's no real character development, and it seemed as if each got into character on the morning of each day of shooting.La Palma's past is in the Mafia, and the film flies to New York to introduce James Mitchum, mafia-boss Frank, and a brief appearance from Luigi Pistilli. Mitchum, son of Robert, looks more like his father than his brother, Christopher, and Mitchum had previously shot-up the screen in Tonino Ricci's tons-of-fun, jungle-actioner Raiders of the Magic Ivory (1988). Pistilli is a familiar face in Italian genre cinema, highlights being roles in Mario Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) and Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key. La Palma escapes the mafia war on the streets of New York to Africa.
Cut to Rome. The mafia war ain't over. Frank can't do a whole lot for La Palma. Back to Africa and enter mafia hitman, Jake (Daniel Greene). Soft-spoken, muscle-bound Greene who tore up the screen in Hands of Steel can't save this one. Jake's entrance is about halfway through the film and like the rest of it, it heats up for a minute or two, especially the scenes with Greene, but it continues to fall flat. Greene made notable appearances in Pierluigi Ciriaci's Soldier of Fortune (1987) and the elusive Hammerhead (1987) by Enzo G. Castellari. His most recent work is small appearances in almost every Farrelly Brothers film. Go figure.A lot of talent lies dead in the water in this one. Beyond Kilimanjaro, Across the River of Blood lacks the cool sleazy 70s vibe and the ridiculous excessive 80s vibe of Italian genre cinema. Kilimanjaro doesn't know what it wants to be, where it wants to go, and what it wants the viewer to see. This one is obscure and, rarely, rightfully so.

Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels (1962)

My aunt and uncle are nearing retirement and with Spring in full swing, I noticed at their home that their dogwood flowers were in full bloom. My uncle told me that the flowers were grown from clippings given to him by his father, long gone now by several years, from the dogwood flowers surrounding his childhood home. Hurricane Katrina had wiped that group of flowers away. I remember Katrina taking a lot from us, but she also gave me the opportunity to see my mother and father's reunion, after their longest spell apart, in thirty-two years of marriage. For the first time, I saw not my old man and my Mom but rather two people who really loved each other in an embrace. Likewise, my aunt and uncle, nearing thirty-seven years of marriage, plan to retire in my uncle's childhood home, with a handful or two of dogwood flowers to put back in the earth. Hearing my uncle tell his story in the most unassuming way, I was struck by how poetic it was. Normally, I'm a fairly shallow person, but moved by his story, I continued the poetic mood and revisited a favorite poetic film, Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels (1962).

Father Jozef Suryn (Mieczyslaw Voit) arrives at the outskirts of the cloister to go behind the walls to participate in a series of public exorcisms of the nuns, led by Mother Joan of the Angels (Lucyna Winnicka). A previous priest, who had fathered two children, has been burned at the stake outside the convent, while it is believed that the nuns inside are possessed by demons.
Father Jozef has been raised and lived primarily within seclusion his whole life. He comes to his task with the utmost humility and piety. His inner walls are about to crumble a little bit when he meets Mother Joan.So begins one of the most bizarre, yet very touching and tragic love stories ever filmed. Real human contact is a rare commodity in this society. Not even E.M. Forster's Edwardian England could produce such a formal series of events coming near to courting. Mother Joan wants to open up her life within the cloister and she notices by attracting the attention of "demons," pervasive within herself and her sisters, she can invite not only the highest priests but the entire public to invade the sanctuary. Feeling an attraction for Father Jozef, she must continue to act possessed in order to keep him closer.

Father Jozef does not like his new feelings, and as penance, he often punishes himself by lashing his back while kneeling. During one of the film's most famous scenes, the public exorcism, Mother Joan puts on quite a show. However, she seeks redemption, a few whispered words of prayer, within earshot of only Father Jozef. Father Jozef believes that the best course to her salvation is to move her away from the public eye and close her up in a room with himself for quiet prayer. The pain only becomes more excruciating as the two are alone, and Father Jozef's feelings deepen, as do Mother Joan's. Eventually, Father Jozef must literally erect a fence between himself and Mother Joan to keep their feelings at bay. Realizing that he cannot overcome his human feelings for Mother Joan of the Angels, Father Jozef becomes a martyr, preferring to have the "demons" within him.

Shot with virtually no music, Kawalerozwicz's Mother Joan of the Angels is like a series of flickering beautiful still photographs. Each frame could stand completely alone. The symbolism is obvious but nonetheless powerful. The burnt remnants of the stake outside the convent serve as a reminder to those who break their vows. The shots of the convent show it looming over the countryside as a source of curiosity for those outside and as a prison for those within. There is many a surreal touch in the film: Father Jozef encounters a rabbi in an enclosed room. The rabbi is played also by Mieczyslaw Voit, so when the two begin a discussion on the nature of feelings, redemption, and evil, it is as if Jozef is speaking to himself in a mirror, reflecting the questions within Jozef's heart. Anna Ciepielewska plays Sister Malgorzata, the only nun who isn't playing possessed. She ventures out of the convent to the local tavern to gossip with the barmaid and sing a few songs. She meets Chrzaszczewski (Stanislaw Jasiukiewicz), and the two fall seemingly in love. In an ironic touch, Chrzaszczewski abandons her after their first night together. Sister Malgorzata opened her heart and shed her habit, only to have her heart broken to create an even stronger desire to run and hide within the cloister. Human feelings of intimacy are shown as very valuable and fragile. Father Jozef's tragic ending is evidence of this sentiment.
The rich history of the actors and actresses, the director, and circumstances of this film are beyond the focus, my intent, and the scope of this entry. This is a film which is both very real and surreal and one of the most poetically haunting films that I've ever seen. Mother Joan of the Angels is not one that I visit very often, but when I do, it is always memorable.

Giorgio Ferroni's Night of the Devils (1972)

Gianni Garko is most famous for his role as Sartana (If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death (1968); Sartana the Gravedigger (1968); Have a Good Funeral, My Friend... Sartana Will Pay (1970); and Light the Fuse... Sartana Is Coming (1971)) and his other numerous performances in Westerns. Garko had an interesting look: bright, piercing eyes and a strong stoic sense about him. He could sling a six-shooter with the best of them, and many of his Westerns are favorites of mine. The Price of Death (1971) is excellent as a giallo/mystery/Western with Garko as a playboy/private eye/gunslinger. Garko's performances weren't limited to Westerns in this period. He would appear in Enzo G. Castellari's thriller, Cold Eyes of Fear (1971), and Fernando Di Leo's masterful crime flick, The Boss (1973). Finally, in between those two films, Garko would appear in a little-seen horror film of the period, Giorgio Ferroni's Night of the Devils (1972). Based upon Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's The Family of the Vourdalak (Sem'ya Vurdalaka) (1839), Garko is Nicola, first seen tattered and worn, stumbling to the edge of an unknown river bank. Upon his collapse, the viewer is treated to a highly sexual, gory, and surreal montage of images. Nicola is now in the hospital in the big city. The doctors do not know his identity nor the series of events which led Nicola to their doors. Sdenka, Agnostina Belli, arrives and claims to know the man; however, upon first glance of Sdenka, Nicola screams in horror. Night of the Devils, then, truly begins. Tolstoy's story was previously filmed in better-known Black Sabbath (1963), Mario Bava's anthology horror film, with Boris Karloff. The always progressive and experimental Bava had put behind traditional atmospheric horror, having created around the same time his seminal, Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971). Giorgio Ferroni, who had been directing since the late-1930s, would direct only one film after Night of the Devils. He is perhaps best known to genre fans for his film, Mill of the Stone Women (1960). His 60s filmography is full of sword-and-sandal films and Westerns, like many an Italian director of the period, and shamefully, I've seen little of his other work. However, I don't really think Ferroni would be able to top Devils, at least in terms of cinematic bliss, for this viewer.Genre cinema during the period was going through a transitional phase, and Devils, either consciously or subconsciously, was representative of this transition. When Nicola's car is diverted off the road by a mysterious figure, his trip through the forest is like a trip back in time. He encounters a superstitious and anachronistic family living all alone in seclusion. The family boards the house up at night, something's out there, but Nicola just sees them as backwards and dysfunctional with some serious skeletons in the closet. Nicola eventually falls in love with Sdenka and wants to take her away to the city, but Sdenka's got some issues to resolve at home--for example, her father, who goes out one day on a quest to end the evil that has been plaguing their home. If he does not return before nightfall at the stroke of six, his oldest son is going to kill him. In dramatic fashion, the old man arrives as the clock is chiming.Belli's performance as Sdenka is terrific. She would also make noteworthy performances in genre cinema in Sergio Sollima's Revolver (1973) and Alberto de Martino's Rain of Fire (1977). All of the performances are better than average, including the two child actors, and not least of all, Garko, who gives his best performance, in my opinion, outside of the Western. The special effects are by Carlo Rambaldi, who worked previously on Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve and would go on to work on King Kong (1976) and E.T. (1982). The effects range from laughable to credible but always gory. Ferroni really excels at the atmospherics, and I believe Devils is on par with Black Sabbath in this respect. Giorgio Gaslini's score is also particularly noteworthy. It's a mix of operatic classical combined with more progressive and abstract sounds. Night of the Devils has been relegated to obscurity, and it's time this one's dug up. Like some of the later films from the waning Hammer Studios, there was a lot of interesting films produced before the sun fell upon them.

Marcello Andrei's Season for Assassins (1975)

This 70s Italian Eurocrime film stars Joe Dallesandro. Dallesandro, who was part of a very famous cultural and artistic movement and memorialized on album covers and in song, appeared in a number of European films, after the success of Paul Morrisey's Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974). Your favorite internet search engine could produce more information upon Dallesandro than this small blog entry could muster. Needless to say, Joe Dallesandro's films are really like a genre all to themselves.

The only other film by Marcello Andrei which I have seen is his previous A Black Ribbon for Deborah (1974), a mildly-entertaining Rosemary's Baby (1968)-inspired thriller. Andrei's Season for Assassins (1975) stars two Americans, Joe Dallesandro, as Pierro, a charismatic and violent young man, and Martin Balsam, as Commissioner Katroni, who really has no faith that any of these young kids are going to do anything but turn up dead.

The film opens with Pierro joyriding around the city with his friends. They're taking it to the sidewalks and causing lots of havoc to the other motorists and pedestrians, just barely coming within inches from killing a lot of them. Commissioner Katroni feels powerless: the private citizens are packing heat and taking shots at the kids while the kids are stealing cars, robbing houses, and beating and raping the citizens. Pierro has a baby son, and he's going to raise him right, he muses. Pierro is not going to even get a chance to raise his son the wrong way; his days are numbered and deep down, he knows it. One day Pierro meets Sandra (Cinzia Mambretti), a very cute and naive young woman. Maybe a little bit of her goodness and sweet nature can rub off on him.

Nope. Season for Assassins is essentially sensational cinema with socially critical overtones. Certain filmmakers, like Samuel Fuller (Naked Kiss (1964)), Kihachi Okamoto (Sword of Doom (1966)), and Fernando Di Leo (Mr. Scarface (1976)), for example, worked brilliantly in this type of cinema. Unfortunately Andrei is not able to craft a film up to their level. Rossano Brazzi plays Father Eugenio, who says at one point, "My parish is the streets and I'll preach whenever I want to." Eugenio loves Pierro and his cohorts and knows deep down that they are really just misguided and misunderstood. Balsam's Katroni believes the same thing, maybe, but also knows that each is accountable for his own behavior. Katroni's out to stop the carnage, not bring about any societal change. Andrei's attempts at social criticism are quite transparent and his scenes of gleeful violence are over-the-top. Sandra, while naive is not stupid, won't sleep with Pierro. One evening, Pierro gives Sandra a drug and rapes her in a car. Andrei juxtaposes the scene with Pierro and Sandra having consensual sex. Is Sandra that forgiving or is Pierro that "misguided"? I don't know and really Andrei doesn't know either. Dallesandro's Pierro is a repellent character.

While Season for Assassins cannot rest upon its socially-critical leg, it can rest firmly upon it's sensational one. It's truly an exploitation film with some brutal violence that's really laughable in its excessiveness. The film stands shakily upon both and is worth a gander. Dallesandro would make better European films, not least of all better Eurocrime films, like Pasquale Squitieri's The Climber (1975).

Joe D'Amato's Anthropophagus (1980)

On a small Greek island, one day something rises from the water. A group of friends, bound for a pleasure cruise, meet a young woman who requests to go along. Her destination is the small island. The group arrives to find the island seemingly uninhabited. They pass the night in mostly solitude until the island mystery is revealed. As members of the group begin dying, the survivors search for answers to the mystery and a way to escape.

Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato), prior to directing, cut his cinematic teeth on many an Italian Western, as a cinematographer. Quite talented lensing others' productions, D'Amato eventually would helm myriad productions in a vast amount of genres. Later in his career, he would become one of the most popular and successful adult-film directors in the world, only occasionally directing the low-budget genre film. His photographic talent never waned over his career. Any D'Amato film shows a brilliant eye for imagery, the use of light, framing, and movement. D'Amato was also very conscious of atmosphere--he was very adept at using film composition to create a definite sense of feeling. His excellent ability in the most cosmetic aspects of film is probably why he was so successful in adult movies.

Anthropophagus (1980) has a notorious history and reputation, which is quite merited. It was banned as a "video nasty" in the UK for its depictions of gore. One scene is infamous. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of this film is aware of the scene. The film's infamy and notoriety gave it longevity in genre fans' wish lists, and it was eventually released uncut on DVD in the US in 2005. High expectations and lukewarm reception.

Ironically, the beauty and power of Anthropophagus lies nowhere near its gore scenes. They are the weakest aspect of the film. The desire to shock the viewers into the cinema would become a serious misstep. In fact, the film's screenplay, penned by D'Amato and star, George Eastman, seems so contrived that it appears that they envisioned the shocking gore scene originally and worked backwards to create a film around it. For either commercial reasons or a lack of confidence in their ability, the script stands as it is.

I attempted to describe the film at the outset of this blog entry as I see the film. It's a wonderful atmospheric, non-supernatural horror film with some beautiful imagery. One scene, in particular, stands out. Tisa Farrow observes a large mirror covering an even larger door. She tosses a candlestick at the mirror and it breaks and falls away. Shot in slow motion, her image remains in the final piece--a haunting scene. The film's opening with the German tourists and while the credits play serves as a very quiet exposition. The town is revealed, through its cobblestone-lined streets, as filled with people. When the young group arrives at the island, the same scenes are shown, minus the life once in the street. The sense of isolation is all the more reinforced. The slow pacing of the film increases the dread, so the few "jump" scares actually work.

The notorious gore scene holds up today. At least, I find it very offensive and off-putting. The special effects ain't the greatest. The acting is pretty wooden all around, save Tisa Farrow (possibly her last film?) and George Eastman. Those two performances are only moderately better than the rest. I can understand someone thinking this one an over-hyped and slow gore film. However, I see it as an underrated old-school atmospheric horror film. An all-time favorite.