Renato Polselli's The Vampire and The Ballerina (1960)

After milking the cows, a young maiden goes wandering to encounter a sinister vampire! She's bitten and taken to a villa which houses a troupe of ballerinas. The local farmer who brought the young milk maiden says there's a vampire on the loose, but the Professor (Pier Ugo Gragnani) believes otherwise: vampires exist only in superstitions and legends. The ballerinas are curious and a little frightened, but there is choreography and dancing to do. Young and handsome Luca (Isarco Ravaioli) arrives to see Francesca (Tina Gloriani). Luca, Francesca, and Luisa (Hélène Rémy) take a leisurely stroll that day, only to get caught in the forest with nightfall approaching. Luca suggests that they take refuge in the old abandoned castle on the hill. Inside, the trio is welcomed by Countess Ogda (María Luisa Rolando). Her attire is dated by about a hundred years, and the ladies remark upon this. The Countess reveals that she has no desire to connect to the world outside of the castle walls. She invites the three for tea. The Countess's manservant, (also named) Luca (Walter Brandi) summons the Countess away momentarily, and Luisa takes the opportunity to wander in the castle. She receives the vampire's kiss, and the trio leave, a little confused and a little scared. The Countess says to Luca, before the three exit, "I must see you again."Renato Polselli's The Vampire and The Ballerina is an Italian film released in 1960. Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava were making the true Gothic horror in Italy around that time, for example, with Freda's (with Bava's collaboration) I vampiri (1956), Bava's Black Sunday (1960) and Black Sabbath (1963), before his highly influential Blood and Black Lace (1964). The English Hammer Studios were conquering Gothic atmospheric horror with a litany of flicks, such as Terence Fisher's Horror of Dracula (1958). More modern horror was also on the horizon, such as in France with Georges Franju's masterful Eyes Without a Face (1960); while a little-known director of the time would unleash a film that would change the face of modern horror forever entitled Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock. Polselli's film isn't really kin to any of these films. The Vampire and The Ballerina is more aligned with campy fun flicks from across the pond like those made in the U.S. and Mexico, like Alfonso Corona Blake's Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro (1962).

While the title of the film is simply The Vampire and The Ballerina, there is less emphasis on "vampire" and more on "ballerina." Specifically, a heavy emphasis on Polselli's part on emphasizing his young actresses with a fondness for longing camera looks into their eyes, medium shots above their cleavage, and obsessive captures of these ladies' legs. The teasing in this film is enough to send most of the young gents into a tingling frenzy, rushing home after the cinema without consulting any magazines that evening. Polselli takes the time to break his narrative in the film, like in an El Santo film with a wrestling match, to treat the viewer to two dancing sequences. The first is a fun upbeat song and dance, with the ladies in their leotards, with Polselli's camera near the floor. The second dance is both campy and sexy: the choreographer gets the idea of integrating vampire lore into the productions. He begins to play a tune and the ladies begin interpretive dance: sexy, sensuous moves with lots of shots of long legs, cigarette smoke, and quite a bit of gyrating. A vampire is included in the narrative, as I was apt to forget from time to time, and Polselli adds some interesting touches. For example, after the young maiden is bitten from the initial scene, she later dies and is buried. The vampire arrives at the cemetery and digs up her corpse. She rises as one of the undead, only to be staked by the vampire who made her and driving her back into the grave. This vampire is an egotistical one: the Countess (what a shock) is also a vampire who is tortured by this grim soul. She's not allowed to leave the castle and feeds only when the vampire allows her. He threatens the Countess by using the weaknesses they both share against her, like banishing her to sunlight if she disobeys.

The vampire portion of the narrative is traditional, cheesy, and fun, yet the true charm of The Vampire and the Ballerina is its leisurely pace and scenes with Gloriani's Francesca and Remy's Luisa. Two fantastic performances, as the two characters go from close friends to near adversaries. Young and handsome Luca and the Countess have a terrific scene together, as the Countess attempts to seduce Luca in order for him to free her from the castle. The meandering pacing of the film is fun, because the performances are so good. When the narrative is close to ending, it's awkwardly wrapped up. I didn't find this aspect disconcerting. Of all the participants in this production, the most notable is co-writer and assistant director, Ernesto Gastaldi, with one of his earliest credits. Gastaldi is a legendary Italian screenwriter who wrote some of my all-time favorite genre films, such as Sergio Martino's Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972), Torso (1973), and Umberto Lenzi's Almost Human (1974). He has numerous credits, and his screenplays are often smartly-written and creative.

Practically forgotten or overshadowed by other genre films of the period, The Vampire and The Ballerina is true campy fun and is waiting to be uncovered by the curious.

Jess Franco's Incubus (2002)

One of Jess Franco's few and recent films, Incubus (2002) was produced by One Shot Productions and released on DVD by Sub Rosa. The 90s and 00s haven't been critically kind to Franco nor have they garnered him any new fans really. Incubus is a low-budget, shot on video, remake of his sublime Lorna, the Exorcist (1974) with Daniel White's music culled from his The Perverse Countess (1974) (as the credits reveal), shot on location in beautiful Spain. Johan (Carsten Frank) is a successful artist. At a bar before returning home to his wife Rosa (Lina Romay), he encounters a woman (Fata Morgana) who demands a meeting with him. Twenty years prior, Johan made a promise to this woman that in exchange for a successful life he would surrender his daughter, Lucy (Carina Palmer) to the woman. Lucy was not yet born when the promise was made nor was she ever made aware of it. Rosa is truly frightened, and Johan has to confront the woman, today, whether he likes it or not.

The behind-the-scenes production footage included on the DVD contains some wonderful images: Franco's hand always holding a lit cigarette; Romay bringing Franco a cup of coffee with one for herself, sitting at the bar, during the film's initial scene; Romay helping the two younger actresses with their costumes or makeup; and the most striking, Franco holding presumably the script or a shot list. Whatever the literature is, it is related to the production and appears to be less than a handful of pages. Again, Franco's narrative is going to give away to his imagination and his imagery.

Unsurprisingly, quite a bit of female flesh is on display. Frank's Johan is also frequently nude. One of the more unsettling images for modern viewers, as I have I read on message boards and the like, is Franco's continued shooting of a nude Romay. Romay, approaching fifty at the time of Incubus, lacks the youthful body of her previous work, where most of her fans prefer to romantically remember her. However, I find it quite endearing that Franco continues to shoot Romay as lovingly as when she appeared walking slowly out of focus and into soft light focus at the beginning of his Female Vampire (1973). An older woman's sexuality has always been a problem for cinema-goers, especially males. Not for the elder Franco, though: for a director who has obsessively shot the female body throughout his career, he knows well who he finds beautiful. Franco shares an intimacy with Romay beyond the cinema, and it shows. Romay's performance, as she often is capable of showing, is both vulnerable and powerful.

Frank's Johan is an ineffectual character, and the narrative of Incubus gives him little to do. Beyond sharing scenes with his wife Rosa, Franco devotes the majority of his scenes with Fata Morgana, primarily in flashback sequences. In an extremely long static shot, with the occasional zoom from Franco, Johan is receives the tail end of Morgana's whip. This was Johan's inducement to promise away his unborn child: the masochistic pleasure he received from his sensuous provider of pain. Beyond providing the kink for the viewer, this sequence hides the mystery for the devilish deal: was Johan coerced or willing to trade for continued pleasures?

Johan's relationship with Lucy is an odd one. As the film progresses, Lucy's days become her final ones, as she eventually learns of her father's deal. Franco shoots her revelation interestingly: it comes when she views her father's art. Her father's imagery is surreal, and it alters her consciousness (or maybe a demonic possession). Palmer's Lucy in a subsequent scene attempts to seduce Johan and gets him to willingly admit his sexual desire for her. It's an uncomfortable scene (in which Frank is unfortunately not very good) which Palmer plays with a sinister sensuality and playfulness.The ending is classic Franco, shot in a palatial mansion, where Morgana now holds Lucy to seal her deal. Completely sexual and dream-like, Franco's imagination is let go. An impressive visual sequence full of flesh, mirrors, phallic imagery, and masquerade masks, Morgana plays with Lucy.

As much derision as these recent Franco productions have received, I was determined to seek them out. No, Incubus is not like modern cinema and will appeal to few. The film is available on DVD for those willing to check it out and judge for themselves.

Andrzej Zulawski's L'amour braque (1985)

Sophie Marceau's Marie tells Francis Huster's Léo, "Here, with you. It's not like in the movies or in books, where everything is precise, thought-out, organized with a clear-cut goal. Everthing's chaos, chance, pain, disorder..." These playful lines from within Andrzej Zulawski's L'amour braque (1985) are an apt description of his film itself: a powerful and complex film, which Zulawski somewhat simply describes as a film about a man who becomes a catalyst for a sequence of bad events or situations which would not be nearly as bad without his inclusion. The narrative of L'amour braque is based upon Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, set in modern-day Paris.

L'amour braque begins with a playful and colorful bank robbery by thieves donning Disney masks and, later revealed, led by (appropriately named) Mickey (Tchéky Karyo). The heist is successful, and Mickey and his crew board a train. Aboard the train, Mickey meets Hungarian immigrant, Léo (Francis Huster) and feeling, perhaps, an outsider kinship, upon arrival in Paris, Mickey asks Léo to accompany him. With a handful of cash, Mickey wants to see Marie (Sophie Marceau), the woman he loves. At first glance, Léo falls in love with beautiful Marie. Mickey, his crew, Marie, and Léo go to a cafe in the late evening to dine, after having disrupted Marie's posh dinner party. A violent shootout happens at the cafe, tied to a gentleman named "The Venom." Mickey, Marie, and Léo survive, while for the remainder of the film, L'amour braque follows Léo and his relationship with both Marie and Mickey, as those two close in for an encounter with "The Venom."

While I've attempted to describe the initial scenes of L'amour braque, no plot synopsis could truly and adequately describe Zulawski's kinetic, chaotic, violent and bloody, fiercely sexual, highly emotional, densely-packed and richly-filled cinema. Zulawski's description of modern Paris, spoken much later in an interview after his film Szamanka (1996) gives some insight into the Paris canvas of L'amour braque and describes Léo's journey, perhaps incidentally:

It's an extremely conservative culture now here in France, and they "know" everything, they've "organized" the world, you know. In a museum you know exactly who is a "good" painter and who is not. They organize their world and they can't understand after this 250 years of organization they now have behind them, why the people in this country are so unhappy. Why are they so gloomy? Why is there so much hatred and just...plain sadness? If you stay in Paris for a week you become so...a heavy burden, I don't know what, falls on your shoulders and you feel...so responsible...for everything, and nothing works. It's idiotic, because things, more or less, like everywhere, it's a rich country and they have the problems they've invented, so... They want to control. People in front of a TV set want to control the TV set, they want to control you if you walk in the street, they yell if you do something wrong at the wheel of your car, they want to control. And having control they are very unhappy! Because this is the way to get unhappiness, to control. (taken from an interview with Zulawski by Daniel Bird and Stephen Thrower from Eyeball Issue No. 5, Spring 1998, edited by Thrower, published by FAB press.)Reluctant Léo follows his heart towards Marie throughout the film, as she follows, both literally and metaphorically, in the footsteps of her mother. Mickey shadows Marie towards her destination (with "The Venom"), while becoming a brother to Léo, sharing his love for Marie, although quite a different love from Léo. The journey within the film is beautifully and hauntingly rendered by Zulawski and cinematographer Jean-François Robin. Nearly every frame of L'amour braque appears an artistic composition; however, the edited film (by Marie-Sophie Dubus) appears organic and chaotic. Léo and Marie's first love scene in a blood-red hotel room goes beyond being visually jarring: it speaks to the emotions of the two lovers (in several ways). The scenes of violence are done playfully, as are most scenes of the film, yet they never fail to be intense and disturbing. The violent scenes often involve Mickey and his crew towards his final confrontation. I view Zulawski's cinema as a portrayal of outsiders, which perhaps why I'm attracted to it, and L'amour braque is an amazingly complex tale of outsiders. Huster and Karyo give affecting performances. However Marceau is amazingly affective, beautiful, and vulnerable as Marie (she was not yet twenty years old). Mondo Vision has released L'amour braque on DVD in two editions. I have the Premiere edition and it's loaded with specs here. Mondo Vision has also put out Zulawski's La femme publique (1984) and L’ Important C’est D’aimer (1975) in two editions each. These DVD releases are true labors of love. The audio and video is absolutely brilliantly rendered. I've only just gotten into the supplements. The recent interview with Marceau is fantastic, as she gives insights into her complex character, anecdotes of the production, and her thoughts on L'amour braque today. The video interview with Zulawski, filmed apparently during the post-production of L'amour braque, is also interesting: Andrzej Zulawski is a unique and interesting artist. I own all three of Mondo Vision's releases in their Premiere Editions and I will purchase and support this label with their subsequent releases. All of these releases are available for purchase at Amazon.

Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil (1973)

A man is running frantically through a neighborhood (future film director, Walter Hill). A gate is opened by a young girl which offers the grateful man sanctuary from who or whatever was chasing him. She slits his throat with a straight razor.

Point Dune. From a brightly-lit hallway, the voice-over narration warns of the location. The voice-over narrator is revealed to be Arletty (Marianna Hill) who is now driving the location. Point Dune is the home of her artist father to whom she corresponds only through letters. His letters have ceased which has prompted Arletty to visit. She stops outside of the town at a gas station and receives a not-so subtle warning: The gas station attendent is seen firing his pistol into the darkness. "Fill'er up?" Arletty doesn't seemed fazed by the attendant's odd behavior but she is struck by the appearance of the next patron. A trucker (Bennie Robinson) arrives, and the attendant begins pumping his gas. Curiously, he peeks into the bed of the truck, where two corpses are nuzzled. The attendant shoos Arletty away without paying, only to now be alone with the trucker.

Arletty arrives at her father's house where there is no sign of him. She finds his sketchpad and flipping through, the sketches give away to words. Her father began chronicling the strange events of Point Dune. The following morning, Arletty goes to an art gallery to learn the whereabouts of her father. The art dealer knows nothing but leads her to Thorn (Michael Greer) who came inquiring earlier that morning about her father. Thorn is currently in his motel room tape-recording the narrative of the history of Point Dune by local drunk, Charlie (Elisha Cook Jr.), while Thorn lays on his bed with his lady Laura (Anitra Ford). Thorn's other lady, Toni (Joy Bang) comes out of the bathroom, and Arletty sizes up the situation. Why did you ask about my father at the art gallery? Thorn gives a cryptic answer, and Arletty leaves. Drunk Charlie gives Arletty a cryptic warning as she exits. Thorn, Laura, and Toni show at Arletty's father's house, after Charlie is found dead.

Drunk Charlie's narrative speaks of the "Blood Moon" over Point Dune, while Arletty's father's chronicle mentions a "Dark Stranger," who visits the town, changing it forever. Co-producer, co-screenwriter, and director Willard Huyck admits that his Messiah of Evil (1973) was influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and "pretentious arthouse cinema" of the late 60s, such as Antonioni and Godard. Screenwriters, Gloria Katz and Huyck (who shared an Oscar nomination with George Lucas for their script on Lucas's best film, American Graffiti (1973)) pen an Innsmouth-ish mystery to carry Messiah's narrative; however, the arthouse influence and the atmosphere permeate throughout the film, truly giving this low-budget film its unique status.

The arthouse influence brings an air of artificiality to Messiah of Evil: character actions are often contrived and not naturalistic; the frame compositions are meticulous (and well-filmed by Katz's brother, Stephen M. Katz in glorious use of widescreen); and the narrative is secondary. Two of the best characters are Thorn's lady companions, svelte, beautiful, and cold Laura and impulsive and cute Toni, who also bring a healthy dose of sensuality to the production. Laura and Toni are ancillary characters to the narrative (Arletty and Thorn drive the mystery), yet their inclusion is wholly necessary. Laura and Toni each have a pivotal scene: both wonderfully and hauntingly orchestrated: Laura's getaway visit into the town, which ends at a grocery store confrontation, and Toni's ill-fated visit for a cinema show within a sparsely-packed movie theatre. Laura's encounter begins with Robinson's trucker from the gas station scene and becomes steadily more mysterious and tension-filled. The quiet atmosphere of the town isn't created with set-pieces: the normal-looking town is shot to look alien and other-worldly. Laura's sequence begins as a slow simmer and escalates to a roaring boil. Toni's sequence is similar in tone yet different in execution. Point Dune's residents reveal themselves as monsters not through solely their appearances but they way they are filmed.

The unreal atmosphere of Messiah of Evil rings loudly and speaks more than its narrative. The visuals are powerful. The Lovecraftian mystery is very intriguing yet doesn't cohere completely. This is an intentional artistic choice by Huyck and Katz, yet it also results from the production running out of money and being unable to film a final sequence which explained all. The resulting ending of the film is still very haunting and well-executed, however; and I was impressed with Messiah's atmosphere and hypnotic vibe to allow the plot to slip to the wayside. Messiah of Evil is a terrific film, worthy of cult status. It has been recently released on DVD by Code Red Entertainment. The film is properly presented in its 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio, which really shows the power of Katz's cinematography, and looks terrific. An approximately twenty-minute featurette is included with many of the film's participants, including Katz and Huyck (from where and from whom I gleaned the objective facts about this film's production), who give a in-depth insight into the production. An audio commentary with Katz and Huyck is also available (which I haven't yet listened); two short films by Katz and Huyck; and an audio interview with Joy Bang. Not least of all, several Code Red trailers are included. Code Red is an excellent DVD label which I financially support and applaud. They have been putting out cult classics and films which should be cult classics onto DVD which have only previously been available on VHS. Buy it here and here.

Jess Franco's Dracula's Daughter (1972)

In 1972, Jess Franco was in a period referred to by the authors of essential tome, Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco, as "The Peak Years: 1970-1973." Of the fifty to sixty films that I've seen from Franco, these years hold some of my favorites. This span also sees the end of the Spanish film maker's creative collaboration with producer Harry Alan Towers and with gorgeous actress, Soledad Miranda; this period also predates Franco's collaboration with German producer Erwin C. Dietrich; and finally, these years would see the beginning of a lifelong collaboration with actress, Lina Romay. Although she doesn't seem to grab as much attention as Maria Rohm, Miranda, or Romay, Britt Nichols would make a handful of films with Franco during this period. Around the time of his formal yet decadent The Demons (1972) and poetic and affecting A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973), Franco and Nichols would make Dracula's Daughter (1972).

Atop a seaside cliff sits ruined Castle Karlstein where legendary Count Dracula once resided. The notorious nobleman lives today only in legend, but the Karlstein family lives on. However, not long for some: the Baroness Karlstein (Carmen Carbonell) is ill and perturbed. Her granddaughter Luisa (Britt Nichols) arrives to see her. The Baroness makes a near-deathbed confession: the original Count Karlstein was a vampire; and although the Castle has been abandoned for many years, his corpse still resides within. The Baroness tells Luisa to take the key to the crypt and go. Perhaps the recent murder of a young woman whose body is found at the shore in the shadow of the Castle is the source of the Baroness's immediacy.

While Luisa takes a leisurely stroll to the crypt, the rest of the seaside town's inhabitants begin speculation and investigation of the recent murder. Journalist Charlie (Fernando Bilbao) asks Inspector Ptuschko (Alberto Dalbés) for information on the murders at the local inn. Ptuschko doesn't have much yet; but innkeeper, Cyril Jefferson (Franco) believes the Castle has more to do with the murder than cast a shadow over the sea. Luisa stays in town with Count Karlstein (Daniel J. White) and her cousin, Karine (Anne Libert), after she has visited the crypt.

The authors of Obsession write, "Despite a captivatingly unreal atmosphere, La Fille de Dracula is too chaotically thrown together to really hold an audience, which probably explains why the film was only released theatrically in France and Belgium." This chaos results from "some obscure reason Franco decided to shoot about a third of the scenes in tight close-up, with the result that the erotic scenes become artistic, a sort of mosaic of areas of flesh, which works against the voyeurism that is so characteristic of him." Later the authors add, "After Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein, Franco was hardly likely to control his imagination."

Dracula's Daughter comes from what I informally call Franco's "right side of the brain" group of films: less of an emphasis on narrative structure and more of an emphasis on the rendition of the images and atmosphere. Like a lot of Franco's cinema, Dracula's Daughter appears shot on a low-budget with few (yet powerful and atmospheric) locations and as the Obsession authors note, on sets from another film. The narrative is carried by a redundant mystery: the Inspector, the journalist, and Cyril are hunting for clues to the killer, but the viewer is well aware from the beginning who's the perpetrator. There is an unexpected twist to the mystery but it is only revelatory to the characters and not to the viewer. Franco needed some narrative for his wild images, like a jazz trumpeter using a standard tune to allow him to riff. I don't even think Franco hides this sentiment: from the beginning with the opening imagery of the castle shadowing the seashore, where the first victim is found, with the accompanying voice-over narration about the legend of Dracula in Castle Karlstein, I believe Franco assumed the viewer would make the associational link between vampires and victims.

The poetic power of Dracula's Daughter resides in the juxtaposition of its voyeuristic sequences. The murder victims are shot from the p.o.v. of a literal voyeur: the first victim is coldly and statically shot as she undresses to then bathe. The camera from behind the threshold of a cracked door continues to watch as she bathes only then to descend upon her for the kill. The subsequent murder of a cabaret dancer is shot similarly. These scenes of female nudity are no doubt designed to titillate, yet Franco creates an unsettling and sinister atmosphere with the images. The murder of the cabaret dancer is even more jarring, because of her previous scene, where she was dancing nude to a jovial group of onlookers. The two scenes of her undressing create total opposite emotions in the viewer, arousal and repulsion, respectively, despite both scenes' attempts to titillate.

Juxtaposed to the literal voyeuristic sequences are two love scenes with Nichols' Luisa and Libert's Karine. These scenes are shot "objectively" and are filmed, as the Obsession authors allude, in Franco's "characteristically voyeuristic" style: stationary camera on tripod, panning left or right, or hand held, slowly-moving, wide to medium shots, with intense use of zoom, whose speed ranges from slowly to quickly, to sometimes very intimate close-ups on the actresses' bodies. This style is almost like Franco attempting to match his camera with the movements of his roving and discursive eye. Luisa and Karine's first lovemaking scene follows after Luisa has visited the crypt and met the Count (Howard Vernon). Now infected, Luisa's seduction of Karine is a vampiric one and a feeding. All appearances, however, give way to a very erotic love scene with cross cuts of Count Karlstein (Daniel J. White, who wrote the music with Franco) playing the piano with the beautiful score segueing the two. Both Nichols and Libert are, to put it mildly, strikingly beautiful and Franco's camera doesn't hide it: the soft light gives a soft feel to their skin which accompanies their soft caresses, as their loose hair brushes against each other, lightly. Franco brilliantly ends the first lovemaking scene with a zoom shoot to a close up on Libert's fingers, slightly coiling after Luisa's feeding.Whatever chaos results from Dracula's Daughter is the result of Franco's poetic imagination. The emotions and imagery clash as the narrative fades away. Franco's cinema is often a haunting experience.

All objective facts and the quotes are taken from Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco.

Cesare Canevari's Matalo (1970)

Cesare Canevari's Matalo (1970) begins with a powerful image of a woman covered completely in black, presumably a widow, in the foreground of a quiet, dusty town, where its inhabitants are standing at the threshold of the jail. A criminal (Corrado Pani) is being led to the noose. The solemn widow gets a wink and a smirk from the soon-to-be dead man, before a gang of bandits raid the town. In the commotion, the criminal gets set free and ducks into an office to loot a satchel of money. The widow meets him at gunpoint, and he lifts the black veil: the two embrace for an intimate kiss, and the criminal leaves the young window, standing with her gun unfired.

Matalo is a unique Western, perhaps most notable for Lou Castel's character, Ray, and his choice of weapons: boomerangs. Mario Migliardi's score is unlike most typical Westerns: electronic and contemporary, even with occasional flashes of what sounds like reverb. Director Canevari's film also has a unique atmosphere: at times, it feels like a traditional Western, with shoot outs and stagecoaches, and at others, like a Gothic horror film; and even at times, Matalo appears as a psychedelic experience.

Pani's criminal is Bart and the satchel of looted money, he gives to the group of bandits, who presumably were hired to free him. Bart smiles and winks at the group as they ride off, only to pull his rifle when their backs are turned to gun them down. After reclaiming the money, Bart gives an odd soliloquy about how life is preferable to be on the opposite side of the gun barrel and the one holding the cash, literally at all costs. Bart meets his two compatriots, Phil (Luis Dávila) and Ted (Antonio Salines), at the crossroads, and after another smile and a wink from Bart, the trio rides off.

In another series of powerful images, the trio ride by a cemetery, with all the headstones reading the last name Benson. Migliardi's accompanying score during this sequence is ominous and haunting with wailing sounds. The trio ride into a ghost town, where the sign, "Benson Bank," hangs by one chain. They hole up. One more arrives the following day, and she is stunning beauty, Mary (Claudia Gravy). Mary is Phil's fiercely sensuous lady, but she likes the wink and the smirk that Bart gives her at her arrival. The four execute a highway robbery of a stagecoach, escorting a cache of U.S. government cash. The robbery ends in a bloody shootout with Bart dying. The robbery is easily Matalo's most traditional sequence and for all purposes, tradition is abandoned at its crime scene.

Canevari plays on the idea of a "ghost town": the cemetery imagery prior to the trio's arrival shows a literal ghost town. Canevari shoots the town night scenes like an atmospheric horror film, punctuated by quick cross cuts of a close-up of a human eye. Someone is watching them, but initially, given the music and the tone of the exposition, it is unknown to the viewer whether the eye belongs a living or dead person. As Phil, Ted, and Mary hole up in the town, and especially during the night scenes, Canevari increases the tension among the characters. Ted gives more than a roving eye towards Mary: he practically stares at her as if worshipping. Gravy's Mary is hypnotically seductive, not just to Ted, but to the viewer also. Her flirtatious nature hides a sinister power. Phil is spied through the window by Ted seen moving the crate of gold to another location. Ted wakes Mary to tattle: although it would seem two-hundred thousand dollars is Ted's motivation but the scene comes off as Ted trying to ally with Mary in order to have the opportunity to wrap his arms around her.

Three other participants play into Matalo: one is the hidden inhabitant of the town, and the other two are unfortunates who wander in: a pretty traveler, Bridget (Ana María Noé), who is widowed on the road; and Ray (Castel), decked out in a paisley coat with a sack of boomerangs under his arm and riding a pale horse. Bridget and Ray both enter the town looking for fresh water, and Ray's at the edge of death from dehydration. None of the three are treated well by Phil, Ted, and Mary; but it is Ted who suffers the most at their hands and through whose eyes Canevari shoots the remainder of Matalo. Mary, in another powerful sequence, swings above Ray's body on a child's swing while holding a knife above him. Mary's also teasing laughing Ted with smiles and laughs and seductive waves of her legs (which Canevari emphasizes in his compositions). Ted takes to beating Ray with a chain or cruelly teasing him with the promise of some water. As Ray's dehydration takes over, the shots become more subjective and hallucinatory. Through Ray's eyes, Ted becomes almost a literal monster.

Needless to say, Ray doesn't lay down the remainder of Matalo, and it is quite cool to watch Castel's Ray whip a little ass with boomerangs. The final action scenes are well-shot and edited. Still working today, Lou Castel is a fantastic actor. His early appearance in Marco Bellocchio's Fist in His Pocket (1965) is a phenomenal performance. He gave a sinister turn and excellent performance in Umberto Lenzi's Orgasmo (1969). Castel played a pivotal character in Damiano Damiani's masterful western A Bullet for the General (1966), and appeared in one more very odd Western before Matalo, Carlo Lizzani's Kill and Pray (1967). Cesare Canevari is a madman and unique film maker in Italian cinema. He directed Io, Emmanuelle (1969) with Erika Blanc, The Nude Princess (1976) with Ajita Wilson, the super-nasty Gestapo's Last Orgy (1977), and the very, very, very sleazy mystery Killing in the Flesh (1983) with Marc Porel, for example. All are notable works. However, his Matalo ranks alongside Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo (1970) and Roland Klick's Deadlock (1970) as one of the oddest Westerns to come from Europe. Truly unique and unexpected, Matalo should appeal European-Cult film fans. See it. Matalo has been released on DVD in the U.S. by excellent label, Wild East. Buy it here.

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.