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 A family moves into a house with a "shocking secret" and their son begins to
"communicate with the spirits of the dead." Soon they find out that "domestic
bliss can be murder...when home is where the horror is." They tell us that
this is Mario Bava's last movie and that it is "now restored from the original
negative materials for the first time ever." 1977, 92 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
Mario Bava's final film before he kicked the bucket is not what you would call
a fitting finale for a career that spanned three hundred years and almost seven
hundred movies. It's a half-baked mish-mash of themes that must have been
popular with screen audiences at the time. There's the obligatory Exorcist rip-off combined with one of those evil-kid deals. Just to show you that this
is still an Italian horror flick, you get the pulsating beats of Italian
rock-horror supergroup Goblin. Inexplicably, they have chosen to shroud their
participation in this movie in secrecy, choosing to go by the name of Libra
this time around. I'm assuming that that's because there is some real sappy,
slow, tinkly music (like any of Peter Criss' ballads on his solo KISS CD)
whenever they try to show us that that there are some regular, happy times for
this family and that it's not all floating box cutters, dysfunctional brats,
and pick-axes in the gut. Proving what I've suspected all along - that all
these Italian horror flicks are part of one gigantic Unholy Roman Empire, Dario
Argento's main squeeze, Daria Nicolodi stars as Dora, the mother who freaks out
all the time because her little punk kid keeps leaving rakes out for her to
trip over. You also have Dardano Sacchetti
co-writing this thing along with Lamberto Bava. Dardano is single-handedly
responsible for writing about three-quarters of all Italian horror cinema
having helped to pen the scripts for most of Lucio Fulci's best known work as
well as numerous other Italian Gut Munch vets like Ruggero Deodato. So even
though you are watching a fairly lame attempt to cash in on the conventions of
late-seventies American horror, it all feels oddly familiar to fans of Italian
horror. The best part of all this is that somehow Mario managed to combine the
crappy rip-off movie with the stupid and aimless Italian shocker, but without
any of the style that still manages to characterize the worst of those efforts
(see Tenebre or Inferno - sorry Dario)  So what's the story this time? Gates of hell opening up again? Freak
disemboweling fashion models because he hates his mommy? Nosy foreigner gets
embroiled in serial killer investigation? You'll be disappointed that it is
none of the above except that they do manage to put the part in there about the
mommy-hating. No matter what, those Italians aren't shy about sticking it to
Mom. Okay, we've got this woman named Dora and she and her son Marco, and her
new husband Bruno (is this a mob family or something?) are all moving into a new
house. Except that it isn't a new house at all. It's the same house that Dora
used to live in when she was married to her first husband. But he committed
suicide (riiiight) and she ended up in the crazy house and somebody like Fox
funnyman Bernie Mac probably took Marco in while she was getting help
(riiiight). I know you all watch The Bernie Mac Show and know the set-up for that program (Bernie's sister or somebody is in rehab
and so he has to watch the kids). Jeesh, whatever happened to the wholesome
sitcoms I watched as youth like My Two Dads where a girl was living with two guys because she didn't know who her real
daddy was (I'm guessing it was Greg Evigan). Dora's kid is played by this
twerp who was also in Beyond The Door. Back when Shock was released theatrically in America it was known as Beyond The Door II. These movies were unrelated and the kid played different roles in both
films, but since he was younger in the first one, I'm wagering he wasn't nearly
as annoying as he is here. Irritating as he may be to Dora and the audience,
he doesn't come close to touching the king of all retard kids featured in
Italian horror flicks (why don't the tabloids follow them when they grow up
like they did with those Diff'rent Strokes felons?). That of course would be the little blonde priss from House By The Cemetery and if you've seen this Italian version of the Kenny character featured in
most Godzilla and/or Gamera films, you'll know what I mean. This Marco kid
we've got looks a little like that tot that was in the Sigmund and the Sea Monsters television series (Johnny Whitaker - who believe it or not was the original
Scotty Baldwin on General Hospital back in the early 1960s!). Marco is one of those kids with Italian parents
who is very disturbed by stuff such as witnessing the murder of his dad. He
"acts out" as they say by doing little childish pranks like hiding a razor
blade between piano keys so that mommy gets sliced when she's running her hands
down the keys. He also steals and cuts up her underwear, though I'm unsure
what the point of that was since he hid them. Heck, if it was me, I'd chop'em
up and give 'em right back to her! Here you go sweetheart, you can wear these
around your airline pilot boyfriend, since you're just going to be letting him
in there anyways! Dad's only been dead for seven years, you tramp!  Dora's new husband seems to be a decent guy. He treats Dora well, he's got a
good job that allows him to hang around stewardesses (70's stewardesses no
less!), and he's really trying to be a good father to that little crazy
panty-slicing freak Marco. He even tries to cover for the kid when Pantygate
first breaks out, saying that maybe the panties got tore up by the washing
machine (man, get that appliance psychiatric help!) and that Dora just put them
in her son's dresser by mistake. I'm here to tell you that trying to convince
your
mom that the reason her panties are in your drawer is because she put them
there will not work. Believe me. I mean, that's what one of my buddies told me
anyway. So Marco is pretty much out of control most of the time, tormenting
his mother and doing crazy stuff like lying down in the basement near a
mysteriously bricked up wall. He's really cold and is kind of playing dead and
his mother gets him upstairs and into bed and then he pops right up and tells
her that he was only fooling and runs out to go play on his swing. Marco also
seems to get himself a bunch of psychic powers (and later he even gets his very
own set of Exorcist brand contact lenses!) and this leads him to do stuff like causing shutters to
slam shut and the stunt where he taped a picture of Bruno's head to a swing and
swung it back and forth. While this was going on, Bruno was in the middle of a
flight and the plane was experiencing mechanical difficulty and trying to
crash. Dora comes out and interrupts Marco's murderous plan, by stopping the
swing. Bruno survives, but is stuck in London for a while so that the airline
can check out the plane's stabilizers. For some reason Marco never uses his
"voodoo-swing" again. Dora is a bit high strung and gets all upset when Marco
cheerfully announces that he is going to have to kill her. Bruno begins
drugging Dora and though it isn't made clear what he's up to, I assume that it
is some kind of sedative, because she is such a spaz. I don't think he has any
reason to complain though - he knew she was in the nut hut and had to have
shock therapy when they met. I liked that he reminded her of all this, while
trying to tell her that she is all better. Umm, here's a tip for you Bruno:
if you really loved her and were concerned about her mental health, why have
her move back into the house where all this bad stuff happened? He has a
reason, but it's weak, and could've have been handled without moving her in
there. 
Dora finally gets fed up with Marco's behavior (them panties ain't free!) and
takes him to see the psychiatrist she has on retainer. He doesn't specialize in
children or anything, but this is the same guy that treated Dora for her
breakdown once her husband croaked (good job dude!). He has Marco draw some
pictures and Marco trickifies them by drawing the pictures of a well adjusted
kid, not the pictures of somebody that has a spot waiting for him in the
Trenchcoat Mafia once his voice breaks. There's a picture of a tree with lots
of nice fruit and there is a picture of his mom in bed (Whoa, big fella! That's
definitely either Bruno's territory or Norman Bates') with little Marco
standing beside it, his back turned away from her. The doctor instantly
recognizes this as the sign of a really bad mother, but remembering all the
medicare money he got off her years ago when she was a whack job, he sugar
coats things by saying that she needs to show Marco more affection. Dora says
that she shows the little turd plenty of affection. Oh really? Is that why you
slapped him hard across the face when a bunch of flowers came with a card in
his handwriting that said the they were one flower for each year? We were to
assume that that was the first husband reaching out from beyond the grave
(Beyond the door perhaps? Ugh!) to stalk Dora. We all know that dead husbands
and lovers don't harass their living mates unless everything isn't as it seems.
What is the awful secret about Dora and her dead husband? What terrible deed
could have occurred that would cause her son to be possessed, her house to turn
against her (that's really probably the most upsetting, after all, we all had
Marco pegged as a bad apple - even in spite of that fruity tree he drew) and
cause her new husband to start chopping up the basement wall in the middle of
the night? Nothing other than the fact that Dora actually killed her drug
addicted hubby by slicing his throat. What triggered this awful memory that
she's repressed all these years? I'm not one to lay any blame on somebody, but
Vincent Van Marco did just draw his latest masterpiece, "Mommy Decapitates
Junkie Father" and showed it off to her. Dora gets haunted by her dead husband toward the end of the film and he pops up
to keep the audience awake (like Dora's constant screeching would let anyone
get the shuteye this movie eventually deserves) and soon she's down in the
basement to confront Bruno who is busily busting down a wall. It turns out that
Bruno knew she killed her husband, but figured she was such a catch that he
would cover it up for her (luckily she was repressing all this), concoct some
blarney that he was a depressed druggie and must have killed himself at sea and
then wait for seven years and have him declared legally dead and then get
married to her. Phase II of Operation Hook Up With A Nut Job Broad involved him
walling up the body in the house and then coming back after all this time to
get the body and dispose of it once and for all. I can't remember why he
couldn't dispose of it earlier and there's no reason that he just can't go to
the house on a weekend before they sell it, get the body out and be done with
it. But in classic movie style, he manages to come up with the most roundabout,
riskiest, and dull witted scheme. If you know your woman did this and is psycho
(you know she doesn't remember) why bring her back to the scene of the crime
where something like a possessed child could jog her memory? In the end, he
gets a pick-axe to the gut from Dora for his trouble (I would have never
imagined her capable of that, well, except for the fact that she pretty much
did that to her previous husband). Then Dora takes a box cutter to her own
throat leaving poor little Mario to have a tea party (Who are you kid, Cartman
or something? Is Polly Prissypants there, too?) with his invisible dad. The movie doesn't work because they want this to be a melding of the possession
genre, the woman on the brink of madness genre, and the Damien Thorne genre.
The result is this wildly uneven thing that careens back and forth with the kid
being crazy, the kid being possessed, the mother being crazy, seeing things,
the new husband sneaking around and plotting and none of it seems terribly
clear. I guess the dead husband's ghost is trying to get revenge on the
mother, but he's doing a terribly muddled job with it. Sometimes dinking around
with Bruno, sometimes with Dora, sometimes through Marco, and sometimes in her
dreams. After awhile, it all just seemed like a random series of events
designed to goose the viewer every so often. Razor blading the piano, cutting
up her undies, and slamming the shutter? Why bother? What's the point? Just to
taunt and play with her mind? Fine, then get on with it and plunge her into
madness, but sometimes she gets plunged and then in the next scene she's okay,
and then she gets plunged again and it becomes terribly repetitive. As this was
a Mario Bava film (in spite of him tricking his kid Lamberto to shoot some of
it) you're let down by the lack of any of his signature style. No trademark use
of colors or lighting. No atmosphere, other than the whole "Amityville Horrorhaunted house in the seventies" motif that is workmanlike at best and TV movie
bland at worst. There's some pretty violent episodes in this thing and watching
Dora cut her own throat was jarring and effective, but those scenes are too few
and are the exception. I think by hewing too closely to these earlier films
they were trying to copy, Bava lost sight of his own innate abilities as a
filmmaker and gave up putting his own stamp on things in an effort to cash in
on the latest fad. Not truly awful, but maddening when you realize that with
the people involved (except Marco) it could have come out so much better
without all the emphasis on the Exorcist riffs (the contacts the kid wore at
the end were the worst).
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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