GHOSTHOUSE *** Italy 1988 Dir: Umberto Lenzi. 89 mins In the dying days of the Italian horror scene, Lenzi made this heavy-handed stew of haunted house clichés in America with U.S. actors and a slew of dialogue references to contemporary icons (Simon LeBon, Kim Basinger, Kelly Le Brock). Set to…
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NIGHTMARE BEACH (a.k.a. Welcome To Spring Break) *** Italy 1989 Dir: Umberto Lenzi. 90 mins Michael Parks is typically engaging as a hard-drinking Florida doctor in Lenzi’s Fort Laudedale-shot slasher, referring accurately to Spring Break as “the annual migration of the idiot”. It’s a standard 80’s American dead teenager movie…
ALMOST HUMAN **** Italy 1974 Dir: Umberto Lenzi 99 mins Arguably Lenzi’s best movie, this hard-edged policier boasts an appropriately edgy, diverse Ennio Morricone score, and sets its tone with a highly charged post-FRENCH CONNECTION opening sequence of vehicular carnage. During a bank robbery, the hot-headed getaway driver (Tomas Milian)…
THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER *** Italy 1972 Dir: Umberto Lenzi. 93 mins A trend-setting movie in the Italian cannibal cycle and a career-making picture for Lenzi, this operates as both a cash-in on the American hit A MAN CALLED HORSE and a fictionalised extension of the earlier “Mondo” movies.…
THE PERFECT HUSBAND (a.k.a. What Lies Within) ** Italy 2014 Dir: Lucas Pavetto 85 mins Bret Roberts plays the loving husband Nicola…some may say perfect husband…by caring for his wife Viola (Gabriella Wright) after the loss of their baby. Going to stay at his Uncle’s cabin to spend quality time…