Takashi Miike's Crows Zero: Episode 0 (2007)

Although Crows Zero is not Takashi Miike's most commercial piece of cinema (that award goes to his 2003 film, One Missed Call), the film certainly is one of his most romantic, sentimental, and unabashedly escapist films that I've seen from his diverse filmography. Crows Zero is also as fiercely entertaining as it is violent; and coming from one of cinema's truest iconoclasts, it is very traditional.

Genji Takaya (Shun Oguri) is the new student at Suzuran all-boys high school, a.k.a. "The School of Crows," the toughest high school in the nation. Genji willingly transfered: his father, an alumnus, is a local yakuza boss. If Genji becomes the "King of Suzuran," then his father will allow him to succeed him as the syndicate's head. The current king at Suzuran is Tamao Serizawa (Takayuki Yamada) and he's not having much trouble staying on top. In fact, Serizawa's beating up the local yakuza, who come hunting for him one day at school. This group of yakuza is led by stooge, Ken (Kyôsuke Yabe), also a Suzuran dropout, but Ken gets sent away by his brothers. Good thing, since Genji was in the mood to beat them up himself. Ken later runs down Genji, thinking that he's Serizawa, but the two do not fight but bond: Genji doesn't know how to be top guy at school but Ken has a few ideas to help him.

When I was a teenager, I probably would have loved Crows Zero. The film really captures the sense of male youth which so desires peer acceptance, being cool, holding the heart of the prettiest girl, and being a total badass. Ken tells Genji that being number one will take more than beating Serizawa: Genji's going to have to win over the hearts of the students in the school.

Genji begins by storming into a homeroom classroom and calling out the top guy, Chuta (Suzunosuke) and quickly beating him down, while as quickly drawing his notebook to quote his pre-scripted diplomatic lines to encourage Chuta and his group to follow him. Class C, a smaller band of poorer and more outcast students, is led by Makise (Tsutomu Takahashi), who's dirty, scarred, and pretty tough. Makise, beyond his looks, has a lot of trouble with the ladies; and Genji, Ken, and Chuta cook up a scheme to get Makise a date. The date goes far from well, but at the end of the evening, Makise agrees with his crew to follow Genji, since the outcast is so touched another would go to such lengths to help him. Finally, there's good-looking, sharp, and tough fighter, Izaki (Sosuke Takaoka), who's biding his time for the right opportunity to fight Serizawa. Izaki sees Genji as a threat to his quest to be number one, so Izaki and his boys stage a fight with Genji. Clearly outnumbered, Genji takes a severe beating, yet to Izaki's admiration, he keeps getting up and willing to fight, despite his body being able to. Genji creates his faction, but he gains something much more, a true group of friends who care for each other. Genji even gets the chance to rescue the hottest R & B singer in his area, Ruka (Meisa Kuroki), after she's kidnapped by a rival gang. Ruka and other female characters don't get much screen time in Crows Zero: this film's about fraternal love.

The best character is Ken. As Ken sits bloody in an alleyway, after taking another beating, a police officer comes up and tosses him his jacket. "You were an average student at Suzuran. And a dropout. Now, you're an average yakuza." Ken's vicarious living through Genji is the heart of the theme of Crows Zero. As Ken watches Genji and his friends having a good time at school, the look on Ken's face is jealousy. The ideal life back in school was when life was worth living. Ken has no friends or earns any respect in the yakuza. Adult life for Ken is a struggle, especially in the underworld, where he's often asked to some horrific things. Miike's film ignores the reality of modern children, in Japan or really anywhere: the younger generations have it harder than their previous ones. Competition in the adult world has forced the youth to give up a lot of its youthful amenities. Today's high school education is a true job, if one wants to be successful as an adult. The teachers are briefly glimpsed in Crows Zero and shown as completely ineffectual. Not one class of learning is shown nor is a satchel shown slung on a student's shoulder. The true focus is the kinship of youth. Even Serizawa is not the villain or monster he's painted out to be: most of his scenes are shown with his best friend, Tokio (Kenta Kiritani), who he loves very deeply. Serizawa's motivation to stay number one is rooted in his love for his friend, quite possibly his only motivation.

Although there is more than one brawl in Crows Zero, Miike saves his most intense scenes for the final confrontation, which occupies about thirty minutes of the approximately two-hour film. Beautifully shot in the rain, the scenes are shot kinetically with fast and brutal punches and kicks while the water showers everything. The fights truly are brawls: none of the fights feel contrived or choreographed: the participants throughout fight with emotion, and it shows. The blows look brutal and sound that way and are extremely realistic and credible. Finally, save the clownish characters, just about every character in Crows Zero takes the time to pose for the camera and look as cool as possible. The students at Suzuran look like real-life manga characters with outlandish hair, punk costumes, and each with his unique affectation. When one of the boys is smoking a cigarette, it's cinematic smoking: dangling from his mouth, against the backdrop of the sun, smoke floating in the air. These are the boys that each of us wish we could be or wish that we were once like.

Takashi Miike would follow Crows Zero with a sequel in 2009. For two hours, Crows Zero paints a portrait of idyllic youth on a canvas of blood. The iconoclast and the court jester of cinema does the most shocking: Miike goes completely commercial and traditional and succeeds. Mightily.

Raúl Artigot's The Witches' Mountain (1972)

Raúl Artigot's The Witches' Mountain (1972) has a very bizarre pre-credit sequence: lovely Carla arrives to her wealthy villa after a few days stint away. She notices immediately a wig on her lawn with a large butcher knife stuck into it. She goes looking for her cat and finds its corpse under her bedding. Carla is startled by her young daughter, Greta, who looks like a china doll with black fingerless gloves on, and the little girl is mad at her mother. The cat, who Greta dispatched while Carla was away, scared Greta's favorite pets. Greta goes running around the villa grounds looking, and the two end in the garage. Greta's pet is a large snake, and Carla opens a can of gasoline, setting a fire, and killing the child.

Post credits, The Witches' Mountain remains quiet yet unsettling. Mario walks into his dark apartment and turns on the lights to find Carla sitting on his couch. He's not happy to see Carla, either, and presumably the two were married. The child's death has ceased the marriage. Carla asks to take a vacation with Mario, but he calls his employer, telling him that he doesn't want a vacation. Give me an assignment, he says, anything. You want me to do what? asks Mario. (The viewer, smartly, is not yet privy to Mario's assignment.)

Mario is at the seaside overlooking a cliff with a large camera. He spies a bikini-clad beauty on the beach and snaps her photo. He walks to the shore to introduce himself, and the young woman introduces herself as Delia (Patty Shepard). He invites her to lunch, and she accepts. He tells her that he has an assignment at the mountain. (Mario is a photographer.) Delia does not know the location. Would she like to accompany him? She declines but asks for a ride home. At her doorstep, Delia has a change of heart and accepts Mario's invitation. As she is gathering her things inside, Mario begins hearing a haunting and chanting tune. He queries Delia about it but she says, "You must've been dreaming."

Upon arrival at the mountainside during the evening at a local inn, Mario keeps his presumptuousness in check by requesting two rooms from the creepy innkeeper. Delia disrobes in her room and is frightened by a dark figure at her window, accompanied by the lights suddenly going out. Mario asks if the innkeeper has a ladder. Why? asks the innkeeper. How else would someone get to the window? It's only five feet from the ground, says the innkeeper, and the lights often go out at this time of night, because of flubs at the power station. Mario and Delia take shelter by the fire in the alcove of the inn, and in the morning, Delia is gone. Mario finds her outside not very far from the inn. I don't know how I got here, says Delia. Maybe you were sleepwalking, says Mario. The creepy innkeeper thinks Mario and Delia are a weird couple and he suggests to Mario to allow the lady to stay at the inn instead of going to the mountain. Thanks all the same.

Mountainside. Lush green grass. Cool wind. Mario snapping, what should be, beautiful photos. Delia spies their jeep being driven off, and the two give chase on foot. An elderly shepard is asked by the pair if the jeep was seen. The shepard cocks a finger behind him and then disappears within a second. The jeep is resting with nothing missing inside and the keys in the ignition. The jeep is also in the shadow of a house, located slightly up the mountainside. Let's go ask the inhabitant of the house if he/she know who took their vehicle.

The Witches' Mountain is film with a series of escalating encounters. Because Mario and Delia are so normal and unassuming, the viewer encounters these situations and asks the same questions. (To be fair, to the modern viewer, Delia's more normal. Mario's hair, clothes, and mannerisms are wonderfully dated but put the viewer slightly outside the narrative.) Do you believe that everything, asks Delia, has a logical answer? Mario believes so. If Mario is wrong, then the series of escalating encounters in the film might answer the question as to the existence of the folks alluded to in the English-language title. In my opinion, neither question is answered, and the narrative doesn't serve solely an intellectual exercise. The Witches' Mountain is an organic, slow-moving film. In adept hands, quiet moments can give resonance to loud scenes. Artigot is often successful. Over the course of the final two-thirds of the film, Mario and Delia are often separated. In one sequence, Mario is alone in a cabin and searching its contents. In a series of contrived, static shots, Artigot shoots a meowing cat in various places within the frames. The viewer's focus is on Mario and especially, the revelatory photos that he is finding. It's impossible to ignore the cat despite its arbitrary framing, because of the continuous meowing. As Mario wraps up his investigation, the shots become tighter and the editing quickens. The biggest revelation of scene (and an effective disorienting jump scare) then comes.

If The Witches' Mountain weren't so carefully and effectively constructed, then Patty Shepard as Delia would be worth viewing the film alone. The American-born actress made some fantastic films in Europe. Shepard is a natural beauty and she plays her character with little effort. Her sometimes aloofness gives her a mysterious quality. It was very hard for me to take my eyes off of her. The film also has some haunting sequences, excellent use of music, and an exciting conclusion. The Witches' Mountain is a film which seemingly asks nothing from the viewer in its execution then surreptitiously queries its viewer through its action. Along the way the film is simply and elegantly entertaining.

Herman Yau's Walk In (1997)

Wai (Chien-lien Wu) is atop a large building and poised to jump. Police officer, Tommy (Chi Wah Wong) and his colleague and fiance, Laura (Li Yu) arrive to talk her down; yet Wai is adamant, because she has a plan: after her death, another spirit will "walk in" to her body, and Wai is very cool with that idea. Wai takes the plunge and smacks the concrete. To everyone's surprise, she eventually stands right back up. Meanwhile, Lo Bill (Yeung Ming Wan) and his cronies are waiting for Chicken (Danny Lee), who's going to be the wheelman for their next robbery. Chicken is an excellent driver but a stuttering buffoon with whom Lo Bill and his stooges are reluctantly working. The next morning, Lo Bill and his buttheads raid a crime syndicate's office and nab the loot. A bloody shootout ensues during the course of the robbery, and outside, officer Tommy is ticketing cowering Chicken. Lo Bill blasts a few cops on the way out of the crime scene and jumps in the getaway car. He pumps some bullets in Chicken's chest, since, hey you're kind of worthless, anyway, and violently hits Tommy with his car as he speeds off. Chicken and Tommy survive: Chicken's in a coma and a vegetative state, while Tommy's now a paraplegic. Perhaps another "walk-in" is in order?

Despite the seriousness of tone and bloody violence of the initial exposition of Herman Yau's Walk In (1997), this film is very much a comedy. Since Walk In is also helmed by Herman Yau, it is also irreverent, unique, and a little dark. Pretty jumper Wai, possessed by her new "walk in" spirit, is now a local self-help guru. Her advice is often obvious and direct, such as "you're fat, eat less." Laura comes to Wai to help Tommy, who feels life is not worth living anymore since he's lost the use of his body below the waist. Wai tells him to accept the situation and move on but perhaps feeling a kinship because of the rooftop incident, she tells Tommy about how to "walk in" to another body. Tommy approaches comatose Chicken and promises for use of his body, he will avenge Chicken against the people who harmed him. Tommy also promises not to touch any of Chicken's women, and if he does, he hopes to prematurely ejaculate at the first naughty thought. Chicken agrees, and Tommy with help from Laura, drives a car off of a cliff and dies. Let the shenanigans ensue.

Immediately, at Tommy's funeral and in his new body, Tommy wants to have sex with Laura. In the most romantic place, the bathroom at the mortuary, Laura cannot get into the mood: Chicken's face is a little much for Laura, and she needs some time to get used to it. Tommy is also learning that Chicken was pretty low for a human being: he's racked up debts all over his small village outside Hong Kong and has two mistresses, one pregnant. In addition, Chicken has treated his very plain-looking wife poorly, both financially and emotionally, and has an estranged relationship with his very beautiful sister, May (Ada Choi). The new Chicken is now forthright and righteous: he lines up everyone and starts paying his debts off; Chicken gathers his mother, his wife, two mistresses, and May for many a sit-down to adequately sort out their relationships; and virtually starting from scratch, he begins to gather clues about Chicken's attacker. However, Tommy's relationship with Laura is seriously suffering.

Some best scenes in Walk In involve Lee's Chicken and Choi's May. Of the six women who occupy both Tommy's and Chicken's "dual" life, May is the most enamored with the hybrid man. She learns of Tommy's body/soul switching with Chicken and becomes quite attracted to the new man. It doesn't help that May is also affectionate: more than once, she hops on to Chicken for a tight hug or a cat-like brushing up against his body. Danny Lee's character gives a ridiculously orgasmic face only to have to take a quick trip to the bathroom to clean up. "May, we can't have an affair," says Chicken/Tommy. "That's all right," says May. "Although it's my brother's body, I'm in love with the man inside." Despite his oath of premature ejaculation to Chicken, Tommy puts his foot in his mouth later when he promises to Chicken to be more diligent in his pursuit of his attacker: Tommy promises that if Laura touches him, he will prematurely ejaculate, as well. Soon after that promise, Laura warms up to Tommy's new body to Tommy's discontent. The low-brow sexual humor and the usually taboo theme of incest is creatively rendered, due in part to the performances by all of the participants and a well-timed and unique script. I love how Yau and company emphasize seemingly the most unsettling themes of the story by injecting them with the most ridiculous humor.

Tommy does find out the identity of Chicken's assailant, and Yau bookends Walk In with two fantastic action sequences. Herman Yau must have been born with low-budget exploitation in his DNA, because he executes it very well. The shootout at the beginning and the confrontation at the end is rendered with a lot more detail and nuance than expected. The editing is tight; the camerawork is tops; and the on-screen action is amazingly exciting. The final confrontation also involves a very dangerous-looking chase: two double-decker buses through the streets, colliding at times and going against traffic. The stunts are expertly executed, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of the stunt people injured themselves more than once. Often a ninety-minute or so low-budget exploitation movie offers little, yet Yau often offers packed ones. Rarely conservative, Yau goes where his contemporaries do not, and quite often, I'm the one who is rewarded. With Walk In, Yau impresses me again.

Raphaël Delpard's Night of Death (1980)

Young pretty Martine (Isabelle Goguey) finds employment, after a long stint without, through her fiance, Serge (Michel Duchezeau), at the Deadlock House, caring for the elderly. She arrives a day early before her position is to begin, and Madame Hélène (Betty Beckers) is slightly perturbed. She and her disabled, adopted son, Flavien, also the Deadlock House's grounds keeper, accommodate Martine's early arrival by having also young and pretty, Nicole (Charlotte de Turckheim) show her around and meet the residents. "Typical old people," says Nicole to Martine, as they do the rounds. The residents need little care and are all vegetarians. M. Jules (Michel Debrane) knits in his room and babbles about a coming revolution, as Nicole changes his bedsheets. M. Pascal (Georges Lucas) is lonely and affectionate and a little weird, like all the residents, but is seemingly harmless. Madame Hélène has a strict rule about her caregivers: no one is allowed to leave the house grounds for the initial two months of employment, in order for the residents to grow accustomed to their presence. This is Nicole's final night of her two month stint, and tomorrow, she will be able to leave and see her boyfriend. Martine asks to leave and see Serge before her position officially starts tomorrow, and Madame Hélène agrees. With Martine gone, and Nicole sleeping soundly, all of the elderly guests gather that evening to reveal themselves as not vegetarians. Nicole goes missing, and Martine begins her post and also looking for clues for Nicole's disappearance.

Raphaël Delpard's Night of Death (1980) is a tightly-constructed and simple French horror film. It feels quite like a cautionary fairy-tale about traversing into unknown worlds, but it also has an ethereal feel and a touch of the French fantastique, a la Jean Rollin, which adds to the dreaminess of the film. On the titular night, the elderly residents appear gathered in the dark doorway while Flavien, decked out in his best garb, awaits at the end of the hall with a meat cleaver in his hand. The camera tracks the old folks as they slowly trek down the hallway to meet Flavien who asks "Who would like to do it?" The old folks, like little children, squabble for the chance to hold the cleaver. It's a creepy sequence and well-done. When the residents prepare for their "celebration," it's a sick sight and also accompanied by some really visceral gore scenes. The disabled Flavien is one of the film's best characters: he's looked down upon by the residents and is the most mysterious character within the film. He asks Nicole "Would you marry a man like me but not me?" "No," says Nicole." "Too bad," says Flavien. Flavien asks the same question to Martine who gives an affirmative answer, "if," she says, "she loved him." Flavien is excited at her answer, and in one of the film's most bizarre scenes, Martine witnesses Flavien alone in his room, playing out a romantic fantasy. It's a sad and pathetic site, almost worthy of pity if it wasn't so disturbing. Delphard shoots nearly all of his scenes quietly and the absence of any dramatic flair leaves only a disturbing tone. Delphard doesn't hide anything from the viewer in Night of Death: the mystery within the film is wholly for Martine. Very soon after beginning her employment, she begins to suspect that Nicole never left the grounds. Some of the clues, like an old newspaper clipping of Madame Hélène, are too incredulous for her to believe, yet Martine persists. Delpard leaves no loose ends within Night of Death: almost all of the characters introduced play into the main mystery; and the little clues about a serial killer loose in the city outside of the walls of the house play into the plot line, as well. Often collateral characters in films are just that: collateral. By the end of the film, however, it's revealed the viewer is being set-up, and although some of the plot points are predictable, it was satisfying to watch the film end on a tidy conclusion. The final act ends with the end of Martine's two month stint at the Deadlock House.While none of the performance stand out, they are all very good. Isabelle Goguey, as Martine, carries the film well. She's smart and sweet and a very likable character. Delphard, whose other cinema I have not seen, crafts a creepy little horror film that is well worth seeing for the curious-seekers of European cult cinema. Night of Death has been recently released on DVD by Synapse Films, and it looks terrific. I financially support and applaud all DVD labels which release little-known and obscure films onto the digital format. Night of Death is the type of cinema from which I draw most of my viewing: unseen gems which reward the curious.

Alberto De Martino's Miami Golem (1985)

A glass jar filled with fluid. Half empty or half full? Fluid displaced? With what? A golem, born from the DNA found in the bacteria of a meteorite fallen to Earth. The glass jar is in Miami, FL in an underground, super-secret lab. The fate of the world is at risk. David Warbeck has his gun and is out to save us in Alberto De Martino's Miami Golem (1985).

David Warbeck is Craig Milford, a television reporter, whose latest assignment is interviewing Dr. Schweiger, who has culled the DNA from a bacterium found within a space meteorite. Schweiger believes the DNA is extra-terrestrial in origin, and his hypothesis is that the DNA contains the original strains for humankind. Craig could give a crap. He has to stay late and with clunky, special filming equipment shoot footage of the DNA under the microscope. Craig's equipment malfunctions, and a surge of electricity goes through the alien DNA. Wailing ghostly heads appear when this happens, and Craig captures their images with his video camera. Meanwhile, sinister and nefarious Anderson (John Ireland) is in the Everglades, listening to a UFO enthusiast tell him about a powerful alien life form about to awaken on Earth. Anderson has his henchman shoot the kook, only then to send him to the lab to obtain the DNA. Anderson's henchman ices everyone with a beaker in his hand and grabs Dr. Schweiger's booty. Anderson has world domination in mind, and his secret team of scientists have introduced the DNA to a fleshy embryo, now growing at a rapid rate (with telekinetic powers). The good guys, a.k.a. the extra-terrestrials, recruit Craig to save the world and stop the evil. Craig sighs.

Because he's played this role before, David Warbeck could also sigh. Always the consummate professional however, Warbeck delivers another charismatic performance to add to his impressive list of credits which have made him an Italian genre cinema legend. New Zealand-born Warbeck worked in Italian films in the 70s (for example, in a similar role in Tonino Ricci's Panic (1976)), but it was his work in the 80s where he really blossomed. His appearance in the explosive actioner, The Last Hunter (1980) would not only help kick off the Italian action movie trend in the 80s but also began a creative collaboration with its director, Antonio Margheriti, which would span five works (with my favorites being the Indiana Jones-inspired The Hunters of the Golden Cobra (1982) and Ark of the Sun God (1983)). Warbeck made two fantastic films with Lucio Fulci: The Black Cat (1981) and The Beyond (1981). Subsequent to Miami Golem, Warbeck would re-team with De Martino for the mystery, Formula for a Murder (1987). Warbeck would end the eighties with a very entertaining oddity, Giuliano Carnimeo's Ratman (1988), but Miami Golem is arguably Warbeck's most fun and most odd film of the 80s.

Warbeck has never been an imposing figure physically, and there is no evidence to believe that his character Craig Milford would be a force to be reckoned with. After Anderson has the DNA he sends his henchman to kill Craig as a preventive measure. Craig gets a phone call from his editor which sends him to an abandoned field. A helicopter appears out of nowhere with a machine-gun toting bad guy on its side. Craig, in true local t.v. reporter fashion, pulls a handgun from his glove compartment and takes cover in the sole foliage of the open field. Even more jarring a slow-moving yellow school bus appears out of nowhere, not filled with children but just housing a couple of regular dudes. Warbeck's Craig pleads for the bus to stop but with the machine gun fire, the bus ain't stopping. Luckily the bus is only moving at about five miles an hour, and the Emergency Exit door on the back is absent. Craig climbs the bus and with a marksman shot takes out the helicopter. "Did you just shoot a helicopter from a moving bus with a handgun?" asks one of the guys on the bus. Warbeck gives a fittingly incredulous smile.

Those mysterious floating heads caught by Craig on video lead Joanna Fitzgerald (Laura Trotter) into his arms. Joanna poses as a translator and offers to decipher the wails and moans on the video. Etruscan? Atlantean? Pre-Colombian? From another dimension? The two become allies against the evil. Trotter and Warbeck have an immediate chemistry, and their romance is light and cute. Several of the best action sequences take place in the Everglades, and Trotter and Warbeck appear in a well-filmed air-boat sequence. The best action, however, is reserved for the final act, as Joanna attempts with telepathy to keep the evil embryo in the glass jar in check by remote mind control while Warbeck's Craig packs some heat to go to the lab for a final confrontation. Never in my life have I witnessed a confrontation such as man versus embryo in a large glass jar. Brilliant and sublime.

Alberto De Martino is an underrated Italian genre director. With a career spanning many films in different genres, some of my favorites are The Counsellor (1973), The Antichrist (1974), Rain of Fire (1977), and perhaps his best film, the giallo/crime hybrid, Blazing Magnums (1976). By the time the 80s rolled around and in the latter part of his career, De Martino had honed his craft and could probably shoot a low-budget sci-fi actioner with his eyes closed. Miami Golem is super-slick looking: the action sequences are tops, the creature fx (by Sergio Stivaletti) are cheesy yet effective, and the visual effects look professional despite its budget. Of course, the story and the dialogue are wonderfully ludicrous and laughable, but all credit goes to the participants, especially Warbeck. Most actors, perhaps, would contemplate the state of their careers after having said some of the lines within Miami Golem, but not Warbeck: his enthusiasm is infectious, his boyish good looks carry his charisma, and his acting is always professional. Miami Golem is a fine example of 80s Italian genre cinema and would make a great double bill with Nello Rosati's Top Line (1988). See it.

Mario Imperoli's Snapshot of a Crime (1975)

Luca (Luis La Torre) obsesses over sexy Mirna (Erna Schurer), who abruptly breaks off their affair one day. Luis doesn't leave her alone: he begins showing up unexpectedly wherever she may be. She asks to be left alone, but Luca won't allow it. He has a film that he would like to project for her at his home. Mirna gets to view the film but not the viewer; and with a harsh cut, the two are seen saying good-bye, although Luca wishes to reserve the right to call her, "from time to time." Luca is seen putting scuba tanks in his car and off to the seaside. Gian Carlo, a photographer, is snapping photos of models, Stefania (Lorenza Guerrieri) and Claudia (Monica Strebel). Stefania and Claudia attract the attention of Luca at a local cafe and both are attracted to Luca. Luca and Stefania begin having a relationship while Claudia stays passively and aggressively on the outside. Stefania borrows Gian Carlo's camera one day, and after a swim, Luca and Stefania begin to tussle on the ground, playing a little rough, and then making love. All in front of the camera. Luca goes for a swim. Stefania disappears. Someone else has the photos of the two in Mario Imperoli's Snapshot of a Crime (1975).
Superficially, Snapshot of a Crime reminded me a lot of Antonioni, specifically L'Avventura (1960) and Blowup (1966), two films that have a mystery at its heart but a true sense that the mystery serves the characters and not vice versa. The seaside location was evocative of L'Avventura, while the photography motif was evocative of Blowup. Perhaps fittingly and subjectively, I read Antonioni into this film (who's one of cinema's most influential film makers and quite possibly my favorite), because Snapshot of a Crime is a drama, where the character conflicts are primarily internal and the loose plot unfolds as its characters do, often very interestingly. Added to my sense, Imperoli's cinematography is akin to another Italian master of cinema, Pier Paolo Pasolini, who loves the arbitrary mise-en-scene with disorienting compositions. Pasolini was also a master of the social drama with, for example, Teorema (1968). Imperoli's film in 1975 is also following the height of giallo cinema, of which Snapshot is also evocative, with its frequent emphasis on sexuality. I hope my comparisons aren't unfair but I wanted to give a sense of the mood and style of the film.
Mario Imperoli has a handful of directorial credits and perhaps best known to cult film fans for his sexy flicks with Gloria Guida, Monika (1974) and Blue Jeans (1975). Snapshot is a focused, intense, and serious drama. The viewer not only watches the drama unfold but also examines the characters, for this examination is, often in brief glimpses, where she/he will learn true motivations and true clues to the mystery. Luca is an arrogant and good-looking young man, one who seems to love the chase and the courting of a woman more than the woman whose heart he holds. This is the initial emotion of the beginning, as Luca and Mirna are shown squabbling, Mirna teasing and Luca agitated, while Imperoli juxtaposes the scene with a sequence of the two making love (presumably just before the two squabble). Luca can't have Mirna leaving him and he has to take power in the relationship, somehow. Stefania falls for Luca quite hard, yet Luca never ceases chasing after Claudia. Often when Stefania and Luca are together, Luca asks to meet Claudia somewhere, or Claudia shows up where the two are. After Stefania's disappearance, Luca and Claudia begin a relationship, but it's not a comfortable one for Claudia. Of all the characters, Claudia seems the most diligent about learning Stefania's whereabouts, as if she couldn't have a relationship with Luca without Stefania present.
Needless to say, I found Snapshot to be intriguing. The sex and the sexuality isn't graphic but very much necessary and often very sexy. For anyone who finds the bedroom scene sexy with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) will understand: Small moments and Henry James-type movements and a vulnerability that only comes with lovers. The sexuality is the link which directly links the characters and indirectly drives the mystery. Imperoli has some beautiful compositions: some subjective, like looking into Erna Schurer or Monica Strebel's eyes, and some objective, as when Luca stares at the small of Claudia's back while he lays in bed. The dark side of Luca's sexual obsession is shown as well, and those scenes, like when Stefania and Luca tussle on the seaside, are disorienting and haunting.
The only reason that I can speculate as to the obscurity of Snapshot of a Crime is its lack of genre elements and lack of grandeur, as shown by Antonioni or Pasolini's cinema. Snapshot is by far not a giallo but has a mystery and characters just as intriguing as any giallo. The film has virtually no violence. Imperoli's subsequent and popular film, Blue Jeans, might have even erased the memory of Snapshot during its current time. Doubtful also, Imperoli was ever spoken in the same breath as Antonioni or Pasolini, unless they shared the same cinema bill. Just speculation on my part. However, as someone who often views gialli and is often inspired to have a regular viewing of Antonioni or Pasolini, I enjoyed Snapshop of a Crime. I often try to find cinema that I've heard nothing about to find something unexpected and unique. I succeeded this time.

Jose Maria Elorrieta's Feast of the Devil (1971)

Whether the cinema brought on the sleaze or the sleaze brought on the cinema Hans A. did not know. Gothic horror cinema, with its first images brought in 1910, alongside other modern technological advances by Thomas Edison, of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, continuing with 1931 and Bela Lugosi in Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Tod Browning, up to Terence Fisher's Horror of Dracula in 1958, with villain Christopher Lee and hero Peter Cushing, as Dracula and Van Helsing, respectively, became a cinema that Hans knew well to a preternatural and intolerable degree: dreary, moldy, unhallowed gabled castles, high above a hill top, surrounded by darkness, while within, amongst the sinister scurrying of rats in wormy partitions, bats huddled on rotting rafters, and spiders of inordinate size weaved webs which hid even darker, danker catacombs within, were monsters. Born of superstitious folklore, such as shape-shifting men into ferocious animals, corpses reanimated from freshly-dug graves, and centuried noblemen, existing on the life blood of others, these elder monsters eventually gave way to newer ones. The Deep Ones could never be destroyed. For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again.

In the haunted cinema of Spain, which had borne its King's Men, Jesus Franco Manera and Jacinto Molina Alvarez, this cinema harbored Jose Maria Elorrieta, whose cinema Hans had witnessed firsthand with Curse of the Vampyr (1972) and could not explain its bodaciously curvy ladies, often starkly nude, and odd angles of atmospheric sinister scenes smeared on the gray celluloid with some red, sticky fluid. Not under lock and key in his film library, as filmed and released in the year before Elorrieta unleashed Curse, was Feast of the Devil, with its lurid tale populated by actors and actresses of its day with the evocation that the Old One would appear again on Candlemas, May Eve, or Walpurgis night. Would this be killing time at a cheap cinema show, seeing the inane performances over and over again without paying any attention to it? or would Feast of the Devil be a fancying of every contour of blasphemous overflowing unknown and inhuman evil with sleaze, now unleashed, unstoppable?

No, not really. Feast of the Devil is a tepid affair. Gorgeous Krista Nell is Hilda Salas who arrives at a train station to reunite with her sister, Maria (Veronica Lujan), who, previously missing after a thirty-day vacation, reappears looking disheveled and traumatized. At the hospital, Hilda meets young doctor, Carlos (Ennio Girolami), who's immediately taken with Hilda. Maria disappears at the hospital under circumstances as mysterious as her original disappearance, and Hilda goes to the seaside town where Maria vacationed, hoping to find answers. Inspector Gonzales (Julio Pena) promises to help: he tells Hilda of some of the local culture and its denizens, specifically of Dr. Tills Nescu (Espartaco Santoni), a wealthy physician and philanthropist and playboy, who lives in an old castle, atop a hill. Hilda begins to investigate by showing Maria's picture around. A DJ at a local disco (oh, yeah, baby) says he last saw Maria with Dr. Nescu. Hilda calls bingo, but the doctor's beautiful assistant, Andrea (Teresa Gimpera) has already tipped Dr. Nescu off. On his yacht, Hilda swims to meet the good doctor and Andrea for bikini cocktails. Dr. Nescu has a date for tonight but would Hilda meet him tomorrow for dinner? Yes, she will.

Santoni's Nescu looks like Sgt. Pepper, and his beautiful first date gets taken back to his castle where she's dispatched. Guessing from its English-language title, Nescu is making sacrifices to the Devil in exchange for worldly powers. During a swinging disco sequence, a truly awful band begins to play. Nescu and his colleagues are having a discussion about the paranormal. In a demonstration of his hypnosis powers, Nescu uses his mind to collapse the throat of the singer. What a favor. Bigger powers are at work, however, as there are intimations that Nescu's wealth, success, and love life are all tied into his Satanic work. Hilda, initially forthright in the search for her sister's captor and (possibly) murderer, gives into Nescu's charms. Poor Carlos doesn't stand a chance with Hilda. Andrea is becoming more and more agitated with Nescu's behavior: is she jealous of Hilda or fears that Nescu's doings are becoming way too dangerous?

No matter. Feast is conservative cinema done dully. The would be lover's web of Nescu, Hilda, Andrea, and Carlos is woefully unexplored. Nescu and Hilda is a slow courting, and when Hilda meets Nescu, she for all purposes, abandons her investigation. Hilda does nothing but change her clothes or sunbathes. Carlos does nothing but huffs and puffs. Andrea huffs and puffs. Nescu looks like Sgt. Pepper: different day, same outfit, different color, new medallion. All of this inane action could be spiced up and made interesting, but Elorrieta stalls. Even the real Gothic good stuff in the castle is reserved for the final act and delivered dryly. Bored himself, perhaps that is why Elorrieta threw the Gates wide open for Curse of the Vampyr with nothing held back. Nonetheless, Feast of the Devil is 70s European Cult Cinema and has its distinctive vibe but nothing else.

[Throat clearing. Back in character.] The passage through the vague abysses could have been frightful, for the Walpurgis-rhythm was vibrating, and at last Hans could have heard that hitherto-veiled cosmic pulsing which he so mortally dreaded. And relished. Just before he made the plunge the violet light went out and left him in utter blackness. Shub-Niggurath! Nothing, now, to be seen here from the depths.

I've culled the language from this review from Howard Phillips Lovecraft from primarily his tale, Dreams in the Witch-House but also from The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror. Some of the language is directly quoted from Lovecraft while others I have corrupted. His literature is some of the most imaginative that the English language has ever seen and is perfect for this Halloween season.