Spasmo
(1974)
This movie gets our top recommendation on title alone. How can you not have a movie in your library entitled, Spasmo?
I was thinking it was about an epileptic magician. It wasn't, but still was pretty good all things considered. Like it was made by Umberto Lenzi. Yes, you remember Umberto for his forays into the jungles of the Amazon in such dregs as Cannibal Ferox and Eaten Alive. If that wasn't enough to jog your memory, then we'll have to resort to the cinematic equivalent of shock treatment. Does Black Demons and Hitcher In The Dark ring any bells? It should with you Joe Balogh fans out there. Just like fellow Italian horror director, Lucio Fulci, Umberto was also
capable of making decent movies, if it was early enough in the seventies. And just like Fulci did with Don't Torture A Duckling, Umberto checks in with a mid-seventies giallo film that doesn't do too bad a
job at what it sets out to do: keep you guessing, off balance, and awake, thanks to a believably paranoid performance by lead Robert Hoffman and a great score by the legendary Ennio Morricone (too many credits to do him justice, but think Once Upon
A Time In The West and tons of Dario Argento movies). Before you read this incisive dissection of a movie involving the brutal murder of several mannequins any further, if you plan on seeing this movie any time soon, be aware that I'm more than
likely to give away just about all of the plot (I can't be too sure, because this is pretty much a veritable diarrhea of stream of consciousness blather - I'm kind of like a Spasmo Ebert that way), so if you get to some part where I say that so and so
didn't really die and that he is in fact his own mom or something, don't come whining to me about how I ruined everything for you. (Though lets be honest, if you didn't buy this as soon as you heard the title, you aren't ever going to see it,
right?) Hoffman plays Christian (from here on out I'll be calling him Spasmo), a guy who gets mixed up in an apparent murder and all sorts of skullduggery that stretches all the back to his childhood. Before Spasmo can take center stage, the movie
begins ominously with a couple discovering the hanging corpse of a mannequin! Okay, it was only ominous if you were a mannequin, but it's a good gimmick for a movie like this since it lets Umberto litter the landscape with mannequins when we're
expecting real bodies. Good for a few starts I imagine.  But whither Spasmo? Spasmo is hanging out at the seaside with his lady friend photographer when she spies a body lying
on the shore! Oh the humanity! Not another mannequin taken before its time, or at least before the new fall collection hits stores! Spasmo runs over to check it out, but it turns out just to be a regular old body. Okay, not any regular old body, but
Suzy Kendall's body! (I say that like I know who the hell she is, but I really don't.) Suzy promptly wakes up though and announces that she must have fallen asleep or some such nonsense then she runs off when Spasmo's head is turned. Well, this was
sure turning out to be a tricky little flick, I said to myself. Here we've got an Umberto Lenzi picture and in the first five minutes he's given us two pretend deaths! Could this be the un-giallo?
A clue on a Thermos bottle left by Barbara (Suzy's
character) leads Spasmo and his lady friend to a yacht owned by the sinister Alex (keep in mind that in any good giallo every character is sinister and if they don't seem to be that sinister on the surface, then you know darn good and well that they're
even more sinister than the ugly Italian guys you're already keeping an eye on). Alex and Barbara are some kind of item, but the next thing you know Spasmo and Barbara are headed off to her motel room while Alex and Spasmo's woman are nowhere to be
found. Babs informs Spasmo that he'll need to shave off his beard (Lil' Spasmo) before she'll answer his booty call. I don't think that this actually played into any of the mystery killings that went on in this movie, but I guess that's just Umberto
giving us a little something extra for our money. For what it's worth however, that's not the strangest thing that Spasmo has to do in the bathroom that night! Nope. That award would have to go to the karate fight he got into with an intruder and whom
he later shot and killed! Or did he?  Oh, you know it's going to be one of those kinds of movies. You know the kind I'm talking about. The kind where whenever you return to the
scene of the homicide, the body is gone and everyone acts they don't know what you're talking about. It's enough to drive a guy named Spasmo, err, spasmo. Or is it? (It is, but I was kind of trying to make this review a giallo review and keep you off
balance.) Spasmo is upset about killing a guy so Barbara suggests that they go hide out at her friends remote stone keep instead of going off the deep end and doing something really nuts like calling the cops and waiting around with the body to make
sure it doesn't get up and walkaway.
While at the house, Spasmo and Babs run into a old man and a young woman. They claim to have rented the property from Babs' friend, but is there more to them than meets the eye? Is Spasmo on to something when he
tells the woman that he knows her and that even though her hair and makeup are different that he's sure of her identity and why is she here now? For his part, the old man says that he was a reporter years ago and covered the funeral of Spasmo's father.
We learn that Spasmo's dad was officially ruled a suicide and that whenever Spasmo gets in trouble he turns to his brother Fritz for help. Is this couple renting the house for anything beyond getting out some of Spasmo's back story? Are we ever going
to meet Fritz? Why is Babs along for the ride? And what's up with all these freaking mannequins? And who is mystery guy that the old man is conversing with when he doesn't know that Spasmo is peeping? Lots of questions, but I didn't even get around
to asking all of them in that paragraph. Who is Alex and why does he keep showing up at odd intervals? What happened to the body of the guy that Spasmo killed? Why did the guy that Spasmo killed show up perfectly alive to harass Spasmo some more? (At
least that answers one question.) Whose hand is that that is sticking out of the well? The same well that Spasmo threw a bloody pair of gardening shears down that he found on the ground? And why is the guy that Spasmo thought he killed taking him to a
really big cliff to kill him? At least that explains what the devil Spasmo is doing running the guy over a couple of times, switching clothes, dousing the guy with gasoline, and rolling the car off the cliff. Or does it? Spasmo and I are heading
into heavy spoiler territory now, so if you're still intent on seeing Spasmo in all his nervous twitchy glory you need to turn back. Spasmo hitches a ride with a broad back to the city after he kills that guy again. He ends up at his brother's plastics
plant and sneaks into the office portion of it and listens in on an intercom to a conversation that Fritz is having with certain other parties, some of whom we know quite well by now. Much is explained, but the question truly remains whether Fritz is
telling the truth or whether everyone is out to get Spasmo for his portion of the plastics plant that he owns. At this point, Spasmo is very good at walking that line between looking like a guy who's nuts and someone who's freaked out that he's being
set up.  Spasmo and Fritz finally meet up and some things are explained from their past via some home movies that Fritz is conveniently watching when Spasmo comes in. Though
its questionable that anyone would be filming all the stuff that these home movies purport to capture or that they would have these dramatic close ups, but it is an effective tool to use to communicate what would usually be done through a bunch of wavy
flashbacks. I also may be somewhat thick, but I sort of had a problem telling which kid was supposed to be which brother, but by the end of things it became clearer.(Spasmo was the shorter one that seemed slightly more creepy than Fritz.)
The final
minutes of the movie includes a reunion with an unexpected twist, some deaths, a revelation about Spasmo and his family that explains much of what went on and also the nature and extent of Fritz's involvement. The movie concludes with a final twist
that explains all those dead mannequins that are piling up and its pretty effective though I could have done without one of the characters remembering something they had just read, over and over. We got was going on Umberto, you didn't need to hit us
over the head with it. If I had any complaints about this one it's that all of this conspiracy stuff that was happening was purely a conceit of the movie. In real life, if someone is so crazy that you have a letter from a doctor that says that
person needs to be locked up and gives a date that it should be done by, you aren't going to be needing to concoct some convoluted plan to drive them "over the edge" so that they'll seek help or be easily put away. Where I come from, all you need is
two people to say someone is off his or her rocker and a judge's signature and the sheriff's deputies will be over to their house in half an hour to haul your crazy butt to lockdown. That said, what was on screen was a nice little puzzle that kept your
interest what with everyone seeming to have some vague connection to Spasmo and his situation as well as the mystery of his family. It's a thriller that despite its relative lack of blood or skin (perhaps the most shocking part of this giallo) draws
you into its confusing, sweaty, desperate world before turning your assumptions on their head and leaving your expectations punctured like some mannequin's scantily clad chest.
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