ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS (Italy - 1987) Directed by Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi). Written by Sarah Asproon (Rossella Drudi) and Clyde Anderson (Claudio Fragasso). Cast: Jessica Moore (Luciana Ottaviani), Joshua McDonald, Mary Sellers, Tom Mojack, Laura Gemser. (Unrated, 92 mins) A softcore cult classic that was instrumental in helping establish the legend of Skinemax while playing a significant role in the depletion of many a pubescent teenage boy's tube sock supply back in the day, 1987's ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS is a gender-swapped Italian ripoff of 9 1/2 WEEKS from notorious Eurocult journeyman Joe D'Amato. Written by Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi--the husband-and-wife masters of erotica who would later gift us with TROLL 2--ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS pretty much follows the template of D'Amato's "Black Emanuelle" films of the late '70s, right down to the presence of Laura Gemser, this time as the editor to nympho journalist Sarah Asproon (Jessica Moore), who's writing a scintillating memoir of her sexual exploits entitled My One Hundred Men (Drudi uses the pseudonym "Sarah Asproon" for her writing credit, giving the film a bogus autobiographical ruse in the tradition of "Emmanuelle Arsan"). Sarah is nearing completion of the book as she seduces man #100, none-too-bright New Orleans engineer Michael Terenzi (Joshua McDonald, absurdly dubbed by the dulcet tones of the venerable Ted Rusoff). They have a torrid sexual encounter on a ferry, during which she steals his wallet and calls him later that evening for another hookup. Michael is due to be married in twelve days to his nice but boring, sexually unadventurous fiancee Helen (Mary Sellers) and isn't looking forward to a dull sex life or dealing with his controlling in-laws. So he doesn't hesitate to get all of his wild desires out of his system, diving head-on into a kinky and obsessive fling with Sarah, who wants to make the most of what little time they have, purring: "Give me all the nights you have left! Eleven nights...just for me!"
To paraphrase SNL Weekend Update city correspondent Stefon, ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS has it all: public sex, psycho-sexual dom/sub head games, gender role reversals, cross dressing, bondage, honey as a gooey sex accoutrement, silhouetted hard-ons, reacharounds, self-degradation, emasculating hot cuck action, a Jackie Rogers Jr cosplayer, and cringey Sarah rape fantasies ("Why don't you rape me? I'm dying to be raped!"). It's rather difficult to take any of it seriously, though it's easy to see why it was in regular rotation on late-night pay cable. D'Amato (one of the many pseudonyms of cinematographer-turned-director Aristide Massaccesi) dabbled in a little bit of everything but was best known for his EMANUELLE collaborations with Gemser, his horror gorefests like BURIED ALIVE (aka BEYOND THE DARKNESS) and THE GRIM REAPER (aka ANTHROPOPHAGUS), and he also directed the Miles O'Keeffe ATOR films under the name "David Hills." By the mid '80s, he started occasionally venturing into hardcore porn, where he'd eventually work almost exclusively in his later years until his death in 1999. But he also produced numerous films through his company Filmirage, including the future bad movie favorite TROLL 2, and thanks to ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS, he also carved himself a niche in late night cable, where his Eurosleaze exports always found a home. The film spawned an immediate follow-up in 1988, with Moore reprising her role as Sarah for what was shot as ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS PART 2, but released as TOP MODEL. That was followed by a string of numerically-challenged D'Amato-helmed sequels without Moore, including 1989's unrelated 11 DAYS, 11 NIGHTS 3, which offered a male protagonist in unknown American actor Cort McCown (who had small roles in '80s comedies TEEN WOLF and CAN'T BUY ME LOVE) and 1991's bafflingly-titled fourth installment 11 DAYS, 11 NIGHTS 2 (no, "2" is not a typo, and since the actual second film was rechristened TOP MODEL, perhaps D'Amato was trying to backtrack with a retroactive "part 2"), which starred Kristine Rose as a returning Sarah Asproon. Making matters even more mystifying is the existence of 1990's TOP MODEL 2, which was neither produced nor directed by D'Amato and starred neither Moore nor Rose. With this franchise--with its actual order being a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma--and with 1989's BLUE ANGEL CAFE and 1990's HIGH FINANCE WOMAN (aka THE LOVES OF A WALL STREET WOMAN), a pair of softcore titles with CANNONBALL RUN Lamborghini girl Tara Buckman, D'Amato was slightly ahead of the curve with the straight-to-video erotic thriller explosion that would hit American video stores over beginning in 1990-1991.
Recently-released on an all-region Blu-ray from the UK-based 88 Films (because physical media is dead), ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS was shot almost entirely on location in New Orleans, one of many Filmirage productions of the period that were being primarily lensed stateside, usually in Louisiana, Virginia, or Florida. They would also rely heavily on local--and frequently terrible--actors, though once in a great while, an unknown would break out and go somewhere (future MELROSE PLACE star Josie Bissett made her debut starring in the 1989 Virginia-shot D'Amato production HITCHER IN THE DARK, directed by Umberto Lenzi). Jessica Moore was actually an Italian model named Luciana Ottaviani, who acted in several films under a variety of pseudonyms from 1986 to 1989 before abruptly quitting the business (D'Amato would later say that her boyfriend disapproved of the movies she was making), though she did resurface for an interview on a 2010 Italian DVD release of ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS (unfortunately not included in the extras of the 88 Films edition). She appeared in Lucio Fulci's 1988 film SODOMA'S GHOST under her real name, and her gory death scene in Mario Bianchi's 1988 horror outing THE MURDER SECRET (as "Jessica Moore") was recycled in Fulci's 1990 meta cut-and-paste job A CAT IN THE BRAIN, where she was credited as "Gilda Germano." Her most high-profile job from a mainstream perspective was a small role in the 1987 Richard Chamberlain ABC TV-movie CASANOVA, where she played Faye Dunaway's niece and was credited with the "Gilda Germano" alias.
It's no wonder Moore never caught on considering she acted under at least three different names in her four-year career, but she's a bold and uninhibited presence throughout ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS (some of her nudity is quite graphic), and while she's dubbed, she displays a remarkable confidence for an inexperienced actress who was only 20 years old at the time (and perhaps too young to be playing a worldly writer just about to wrap up a memoir of 100 conquests). Elsewhere in the cast, Sellers is American, though she's spent her entire career in the Italian film industry and was a member of the Filmirage stock company for several years, also appearing in Michele Soavi's debut STAGEFRIGHT, Umberto Lenzi's GHOSTHOUSE, and Fabrizio Laurenti's THE CRAWLERS (aka CONTAMINATION .7). McDonald's career ended faster than Moore's--this was his second acting credit (after a bit part in Empire's shot-in-Italy ZONE TROOPERS), and he was out of movies after his third, Aldo Lado's 1988 actioner SAHARA HEAT. ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS isn't, by the standard definition, a good movie. But it's never dull (for obvious reasons), it's an essential title from an era of sexploitation that's somewhat fallen off the radar, and Jessica Moore is a stunning beauty who deserves her rightful place alongside Sylvia Kristel and Laura Gemser in the Softcore Eurotrash Hall of Fame. The Blu-ray release of ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS takes one back to a time in their formative junior high years before the age of the internet and streaming, when one would sneak downstairs in the middle of the night if one of these trashy imports was on, the wailing sax always the telltale indication that one of "the good parts" was coming up and you had to make sure the volume was low enough so as not to wake up the rest of the house. Hypothetically, of course.
ROBOWAR (Italy - 1988) Directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei). Written by Rossella Drudi. Cast: Reb Brown, Catherine Hickland, Alex McBride (Massimo Vanni), Romano Puppo, Clyde Anderson (Claudio Fragasso), Max Laurel, Jim Gaines, John P. Dulaney, Mel Davidson. (Unrated, 91 mins) A year after unveiling the never-released-in-the-US SHOCKING DARK, a beyond blatant 1989 Italian ALIENS ripoff, Severin Films has taken another dive into the cinematic cesspool of Flora Film and producer Franco Gaudenzi with the Blu-ray releases (because physical media is dead) of 1988's ROBOWAR and 1990's NIGHT KILLER. Like SHOCKING DARK (shamelessly released in Italy as TERMINATOR 2), neither of these two Italian ripoffs ever made it into US theaters or video stores back in the day, though they've been available in inferior quality versions on the bootleg and torrent circuit for years. Reuniting the star (Reb Brown) and director (Bruno Mattei) of 1987's immortal RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II ripoff STRIKE COMMANDO, ROBOWAR doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's stealing entire set-ups, scenes, and plot points from the previous year's Schwarzenegger smash PREDATOR. BrownIS Major Murphy Black, the tough-as-nails leader of a mercenary unit called BAM ("It stands for Big Ass Motherfuckers"). He and his men have been commissioned by government stooge Mascher (Mel Davidson) for a mission to help take out some rebels who have gained control of island that's been wiped out by a cholera outbreak. The real mission, known only to Mascher: to find and eliminate Omega 1, a State Department-funded robot killing machine secretly "created by a team of bionic experts" and sent in to kill the rebels but now out of control and on a rampage. Black and his men--Guarini, aka "Diddy Bopper" (Massimo Vanni), Corey (Romano Puppo), Quang (Max Laurel), Peel, aka "Blood" (Jim Gaines), and pipe-smoking medic Papa Doc (John P. Dulaney), plus UN aid worker Virginia (Catherine Hickland), the sole survivor of a hospital massacre by the rebels--are stalked and offed one-by-one in PREDATOR fashion by the helmeted Omega 1, played by both Puppo and future TROLL 2 director and frequent Mattei writing partner Claudio Fragasso, who also stepped in to direct a few scenes when Mattei briefly fell ill on location in the Philippines.
Shot in the same sweltering Filipino jungle locations as most Gaudenzi productions of this period (STRIKE COMMANDO, ZOMBI 3), ROBOWAR wastes a lot of time on tedious stretches where everyone's just walking around and asking "Did you see that?" Brown gets to do his signature Reb Brown yells, but up to a point, it's rather restrained and too hesitant to commit to the all-out insanity of STRIKE COMMANDO or SHOCKING DARK. That is, until the last 15 minutes, when Mattei and screenwriter Rossella Drudi (the wife of Fragasso, who also made some uncredited contributions to the script) abruptly switch gears and turn it into an out-of-nowhere ROBOCOP ripoff with a revelation about the Omega 1. Only then does ROBOWAR reach the heights of madness usually associated with Mattei and Fragasso, capped off by gaffe-filled closing credits that list Brown playing "Marphy Black" and Hickland playing "Virgin," and misidentify Gaines and Vanni. The hapless Mattei can't even properly copy the PREDATOR heat vision shots thanks to Gaudenzi's cheap-ass budget, with the Omega 1 vision just a blurry pixellation, which begs the question "A high-tech, state-of-the-art US government funded robot killing machine and the best vision they can give it looks just like the scrambled porn you tried to watch when you were 12?" Until the last 15 minutes, ROBOWAR isn't as much fun as it should be, but more interesting for Eurotrash fans is the wealth of extras offered by Severin on the Blu-ray, including interviews with Fragasso, Drudi (two interviews with her), Hickland, Dulaney, Gaines, and Vanni, with at least two of those participants going into specifics about why everyone hated co-star Davidson, a Danish actor who lived and worked on B-movies in the Philippines. Both Dulaney and Gaines describe Davidson as a known pedophile, with Gaines mentioning him being caught in the act with a 12-year-old boy at one point during production, and members of the cast restraining Brown from beating the shit out of him (perhaps the Davidson issue is why Brown, who contributed to the YOR Blu-ray and is a convention regular, is MIA in these extras?)
ROBOWAR in no way inspired by PREDATOR
That's all interesting stuff, but the big treasure among the extras is a 15-minute compilation of on-set home movie footage, blurry but with clear audio, taken by Hickland during some downtime on the shoot. An American soap star married to David Hasselhoff at the time and serving her required stint in the Italian exploitation industry (she was also in WITCHERY with Hasselhoff, and Stelvio Massi's never officially released TAXI KILLER), Hickland managed to get some absolutely priceless footage of the cast and crew goofing off ("There he is, the maestro Bruno," as Mattei waves to the camera from his director's chair, or Brown yelling "Eat your heart out, David!" when she gathers her co-stars--"my guys"--for an impromptu cast introduction that, judging from Davidson being included in the fun, must've been before everyone found out about his off-set activities), specific dates of production (Brown is heard saying "Today is May 1, 1988"), and even a brief interaction ("This guy right here...") with Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti regular Luciano Pigozzi, aka "Alan Collins," who's in the cast credits but nowhere to be found in the released film. Pigozzi is credited but unseen in several Filipino-shot Italian productions of this period (including ZOMBI 3), with IMDb adding a parenthetical "(Scenes deleted)" with each entry. It's unknown why Pigozzi was supposedly cut from so many films, or if he was credited for some kind of quota reason, but Hickland's footage proves he indeed was there on the set. Raise your hand if you ever thought you'd see behind-the-scenes footage from a Filipino-shot Reb Brown/Bruno Mattei joint.
NIGHT KILLER (Italy - 1990) Written and directed by Clyde Anderson (Claudio Fragasso). Cast: Peter Hooten, Tara Buckman, Richard Foster, Mel Davis, Lee Lively, Tova Sardot, Gaby Ford. (Unrated, 93 mins) Shot in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, VA in December 1989, the obscure NIGHT KILLER was a film that Claudio Fragasso envisioned as a serious auteur statement, a psychological thriller that was also a riff on Ingmar Bergman's SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Italian schlock producer Franco Gaudenzi didn't like what he saw with Fragasso's initial cut, and while the director was off in Louisiana working on 1990's BEYOND DARKNESS for Joe D'Amato's Filmirage, Gaudenzi had Bruno Mattei shoot an interminable opening sequence and additional murder scenes in Italy, plus several insert shots that significantly cranked up the gore and splatter that was virtually non-existent in Fragasso's cut. This essentially brought an end to Fragasso and Mattei's working relationship, and to top it off, Gaudenzi, taking a page from the ZOMBI 2 and ALIEN 2: ON EARTH playbook, sold the film as TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3 for its Italian release (the real LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III, released in the US in January 1990, wouldn't hit Europe for another year). The retitling is in complete disregard for the film's Virginia Beach setting and the fact that the killer is clearly inspired by A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, wearing some rubbery hands with talon-like fingernails and what looks like a knockoff Freddy Krueger mask that Fragasso picked up at a Norfolk Rite-Aid.
After the Mattei-shot opening where an irate choreographer (Gaby Ford) loses her shit with her dancers and storms off only to be disemboweled and tossed off a balcony by the killer, the story shifts to Melanie Beck (Tara Buckman), who's still reeling from the collapse of her marriage to an alcoholic, disgraced cop. She sends her young daughter Clarissa (Tova Sardot) to spend the day with family friends Sherman (Richard Foster) and his wife Annie (an uncredited actress who's terrible) and is soon terrorized by an obscene phone caller who turns out to be calling from inside the house (there's no stated reason for Melanie to have two phone lines, much less ones that dial to phones that are five feet apart). Unable to escape, she faces certain death until Fragasso makes a time jump to Melanie in the hospital, stricken with amnesia and unable to even recognize her own daughter. It seems that offscreen, Sherman returned to the Beck home in the middle of the killer's attack and suffered a facial laceration in the process of saving Melanie when the killer fled the scene. Still suffering from amnesia, Melanie is released from the hospital (?!) and is soon harassed by a creep in a Jeep named Axel (Peter Hooten), who ends up saving her from a suicide attempt not out of the kindness of his heart, but because he wants to kill her his way.
As evidenced by TROLL 2, Fragasso has a knack for setting up an Italian production in an American location and finding local actors who seem like pod people for whom English is, at best, a second language. While TROLL 2 had a cast of amateurs who've gone on to have a good sense of humor about the experience, NIGHT KILLER is anchored by a pair of professional American actors with a long list of credits, yet they still look like they've never been in front of a camera before. Buckman had a TV career going back to the late '70s, and co-starred with Claude Akins on THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO but is perhaps best known for teaming with Adrienne Barbeau as the cleavage-baring Lamborghini duo in 1981's THE CANNONBALL RUN. By the late '80s, Buckman's career was tanking and she was starring in softcore Italian erotica for Joe D'Amato, like 1989's OBJECT OF DESIRE and 1990's HIGH FINANCE WOMAN. Hooten co-starred in 1977's ORCA and had the title role in the 1978 Marvel TV-movie DR. STRANGE, a pilot for a proposed CBS series that didn't get picked up. His career never really took off stateside but he found quite a bit of work in Italy, like Enzo G. Castellari's THE INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS (1978), Duccio Tessari's THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT (1978) and Joe D'Amato and George Eastman's post-nuke 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS (1982). He acted sporadically from the mid '80s on and would walk away from the industry after NIGHT KILLER to devote himself to caring for his longtime partner, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill, who would succumb to AIDS in 1995. Hooten virtually disappeared from public life, relocating to his native Florida, though he did emerge from retirement in 2013 for a pair of regionally-produced, no-budget horror movies, HOUSE OF BLOOD and SOULEATER. The latter film was directed by Michael Lang, who conducted a career-spanning interview with Hooten around that time and posted it on YouTube. Fragasso and his wife and uncredited co-writer Rossella Drudi are interviewed in the Blu-ray bonus features, both reiterating how displeased they were with the additional Mattei footage, plus Fragasso dishing on Hooten and Buckman's mutual dislike of one another, with Buckman allegedly complaining throughout the shoot about the openly gay Hooten's sexual orientation making him an unconvincing kisser and unsuitable to play a "macho" character.
SHOCKING DARK aka TERMINATOR 2 (Italy - 1989) Directed by Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei). Written by Clayde Anderson (Claudio Fragasso). Cast: Cristofer Ahrens, Haven Tyler, Geretta Giancarlo Field (Geretta Geretta), Tony Lombardo (Fausto Lombardi), Mark Steinborn, Dominica Coulson, Clive Ricke, Paul Norman Allen, Cortland Reilly, Richard Ross, Bruce McFarland, Al McFarland. (Unrated, 90 mins)
For fans of Eurocult cinema, Italian ripoffs are among the most essential and endearing offerings. The flood of imitations in the wake of huge hits like THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, STAR WARS, DAWN OF THE DEAD, ALIEN, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, THE ROAD WARRIOR, and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II only gained momentum in the 1980s when video stores needed product and Italy was offering a seemingly endless supply. Perhaps no other genre-hopping journeyman epitomized the concept of the shameless Italian ripoff more than Bruno Mattei, or, as he's known under his most frequently-employed pseudonym, "Vincent Dawn." Born in 1931, Mattei began his career as an editor in the late 1950s, usually on undistinguished and instantly obscure post-HERCULES peplum, and later, third-tier spaghetti westerns and 007 knockoffs. He's the credited editor on Jess Franco's COUNT DRACULA (1970) and would later work for Joe D'Amato on 1976's BLACK COBRA. By the late '70s, Mattei shifted into directing, with a couple of 1977 Nazisploitation outings with SS GIRLS and WOMEN'S CAMP 119, followed by some dalliances with nunsploitation (THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA, THE OTHER HELL), zombies (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD aka NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES), post-nuke (RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR), women-in-prison (CAGED WOMEN, WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE), and even a Lou Ferrigno vehicle for Cannon (THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS). Mattei had a collaborative partnership with writer and future TROLL 2 auteur Claudio Fragasso, and the pair would frequently work as a team behind the camera, sometimes sharing credit with a pseudonym like "Stefan Oblowsky" on the nunsploitation films. In 1987, Mattei directed and Fragasso scripted the RAMBO ripoff STRIKE COMMANDO, their first effort for Italian producer Franco Gaudenzi. Gaudenzi's career in movies began with Mattei as part of the Joe D'Amato stock company, working as a set decorator, art director, and eventually assistant director on BLACK COBRA and the 1979 cannibal/necrophilia classic BEYOND THE DARKNESS. Mattei and Gaudenzi went way back, and when Gaudenzi formed his company Flora Film and became a producer based primarily in the Philippines, he had plenty of work for Mattei and Fragasso.
In his films for Gaudenzi, most of which were shot in and around Manila, Mattei really found his true calling as Italy's premier ripoff artist. He wasn't exactly new to the notion of swiping other people's ideas--HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD stole huge chunks of Goblin's DAWN OF THE DEAD score--but STRIKE COMMANDO really set the template for what the Three Stooges in the Gaudenzi/Mattei/Fragasso team would accomplish (with occasional uncredited script contributions from Fragasso's wife Rossella Drudi). STRIKE COMMANDO completely restages the finale of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, while 1987's DOUBLE TARGET was a somewhat less obvious take on the same material. Gaudenzi kept Mattei occupied during a busy 1988: STRIKE COMMANDO 2 is a Namsploitation outing that's also an unexpected riff on ROMANCING THE STONE, with Mattei and Gaudenzi somehow corralling a seriously slumming Richard Harris (who would later claim to be retired at the time the film was made) for a supporting role; ROBOWAR is an almost scene-for-scene copy of PREDATOR; and so enamored of the Namsploitation craze were Gaudenzi, Mattei, and Fragasso that they even cranked out COP GAME, a quickie imitation of the Saigon-set Willem Dafoe/Gregory Hines non-hit OFF LIMITS. As if Mattei's 1988 schedule wasn't already packed enough in the sweltering Filipino heat (everyone in these movies is profusely sweating at all times), he was even called in from the nearby set of STRIKE COMMANDO 2 by a desperate Gaudenzi to take over for a surly and ailing Lucio Fulci, who had just walked off of ZOMBI 3 with only 50 minutes of usable footage in the can. Mattei and Fragasso finished the film, which feels more Mattei than Fulci, even though the latter retains sole credit. But it's 1989's SHOCKING DARK that is perhaps the most jaw-droppingly audacious of Mattei's ripoffs from his furiously productive Gaudenzi era.
Set not in Gaudenzi's usual Manila stomping grounds but in a toxic Venice "after 2000," SHOCKING DARK has an elite Marine unit called "Megaforce" venturing beneath the city's canals to investigate the disappearance of another group of soldiers offed by mutant creatures. It doesn't take long to recognize that this is a blatant ALIENS ripoff. Not only are entire scenes completely recreated and played out verbatim (including one where a meter shows the creatures closing in on them and somebody yells "That's impossible, they'd already be here!" and another where two people are seen on a monitor silently waving for help but the mission's saboteur stealthily turns it off) but the characters themselves are exact replicas. There's the team of military badasses led by the hysterically raging Koster (Geretta Geretta, best known as the doomed Rosemary from DEMONS and credited here as "Geretta Giancarlo Field"), who's a composite of ALIENS' Vasquez and Apone; Sarah (Haven Tyler), a scientist and the Ripley-like outsider sent along as a consultant; young orphan and Newt stand-in Samantha (Dominica Coulson); and special ops badass Samuel Fuller (Cristofer Ahrens), an operative from "The Tubular Corporation," which sounds about as believable as Vandelay Industries, who eventually functions as SHOCKING DARK's Burke but in a completely different way. You see--and SPOILERS follow--SHOCKING DARK isn't content to just rip off one classic James Cameron film. It's also a knockoff of THE TERMINATOR, a mid-film twist hinted at by naming Tyler's character "Sarah." The mutant creatures eventually take a backseat once "Samuel Fuller" is exposed as a cyborg hellbent on sabotaging the mission. Though the film was made as SHOCKING DARK, it was eventually retitled by Gaudenzi and sold as...wait for it..TERMINATOR 2 (!), flashing back to the practice of Italian ripoffs being passed off as sequels to blockbuster American movies.
The real TERMINATOR 2 was still a couple of years away, but Gaudenzi's rechristening of SHOCKING DARK certainly did it no favors in finding US distribution, where it would've likely gone straight-to-court instead of straight-to-video. Long available on the bootleg circuit, SHOCKING DARK has finally received an official US release nearly 30 years after it was made, thanks to Severin's new Blu-ray, along with two other Gaudenzi productions, ZOMBI 3 and 1989's AFTER DEATH, directed by Fragasso and now commonly known as ZOMBIE 4: AFTER DEATH. SHOCKING DARK comes barrelling out of the gate and seems poised to become a new MIAMI CONNECTION or NIGHTMARE WEEKEND-level bad movie discovery of WTF? proportions. The ridiculous dialogue works beautifully in conjunction with the cast, comprised mostly of one-and-done American non-actors who were never seen or heard from again. Portland, OR-born model Geretta Geretta is probably the most experienced cast member (now a convention regular, she spent a significant amount of time in Italy in the '80s and also acted in Mattei's RATS under the name "Janna Ryann"), but she's killed off 35 minutes in. Fausto Lombardi appeared in several Italian B-movies from the early '80s on (RATS, HANNA D: THE GIRL FROM VONDEL PARK, the TOP GUN ripoff BLUE TORNADO). And Ahrens had some small parts in Italian genre fare but seems to have left the industry after 1999.
But as for the bulk of the remaining cast members--Tyler, Coulson, Cortland Reilly as the rad surfer-dude soldier Caine, and Bruce McFarland as the colonel at the command center--they all seem to be American college students who may have been in an exchange program or were just partying in Italy when they answered a casting call to be in a low-budget horror movie (even Coulson, who's supposed to a child but is probably in her late teens and is almost as tall as Tyler). Their inexperience as actors is only highlighted by the fact that this is one of the rare instances in Italian exploitation where the filmmakers are using live sound and not dubbing everyone over. None of the usual suspects in the dubbing world are present here. Nope, these deer-in-the-headlights newbies are bellowing their lines in an overwrought fashion and standing around looking confused (Tyler never seems comfortable and looks directly into the camera twice in one scene), with Mattei doing little to hide their obvious inexperience. Most of Mattei's films for Gaudenzi had some established name actors to provide even the slightest modicum of credibility--Reb Brown and Christopher Connelly in STRIKE COMMANDO, Brown in ROBOWAR, Richard Harris (Richard Harris?!?!) in STRIKE COMMANDO 2, Miles O'Keeffe, Donald Pleasence and Bo Svenson in DOUBLE TARGET--but there's no such voice of experience for the neophyte actors to look to here, only the performances of Sigourney Weaver and everyone else on a VHS copy of ALIENS that they probably had to share.
Eventually, SHOCKING DARK settles into a bunch of repetitive scenes of people walking down long corridors in the maintenance area under Rome's Termini Station, standing in for the Venice underground, with the possibility of playing a great drinking game for every time Coulson's character shouts "Sarah!" It's got some dull stretches, but the sheer chutzballs of its straight-up plagiarism of early James Cameron (what, no flying piranha?), and its final ridiculous twist in the closing minutes, is at times truly astonishing. It's also the kind of film that's so sloppy that it misspells Fragasso's usual "Clyde Anderson" pseudonym as "Clayde Anderson." Before long, stealing plots wouldn't be enough for Mattei. By 1995's belated JAWS ripoff CRUEL JAWS, he was swiping footage wholesale from JAWS, JAWS 2, and the slightly less-belated 1982 ripoff GREAT WHITE. This blew open new doors of duplicity for the veteran director. By the time of his final films--zero-budget, shot-on-video drek like 2004's THE TOMB and 2007's ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING--Mattei was pilfering unlicensed footage from the likes of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, ARMY OF DARKNESS, the 1999 version of THE MUMMY, and CRIMSON TIDE. Mattei died in 2007 at the age of 75, but the recent Blu-ray releases of SHOCKING DARK and WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE are doing their part to keep his dubious legend alive. Now all we need is a deluxe Blu-ray edition of STRIKE COMMANDO.
THE OTHER HELL aka GUARDIAN OF HELL (Italy - 1981; US release 1985) Directed by Stefan Oblowsky (Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso). Written by Claudio Fragasso. Cast: Franca Stoppi, Carlo De Mejo, Andrew Ray (Andrea Aureli), Francesca Carmeno, Susan Forget (Susanna Forgione), Frank Garfeeld (Franco Garofalo), Paola Montenero, Sandy Samuel (Ornella Picozzi), Tom Felleghy, Simone Mattioli. (R, 89 mins) A relative latecomer to the '70s Nunsploitation craze, 1981's THE OTHER HELL is a bit of an outlier as far as the subgenre is concerned, in that its focus is primarily on horror and there's no onscreen sex. One of the key components of Nunsploitation is its recurring depiction of sexually repressed nuns letting themselves go and giving into their wicked, uninhibited carnal desires, usually with other sex-starved nuns. Though the mainly Italian subgenre really took off in the mid '70s, it began with the serious drama THE NUN OF MONZA in 1969, directed by Eliprando Visconti (nephew of Luchino Visconti) and starring British actress Anne Heywood. Heywood would find a niche in roles that depicted her in various states of prudish sexual repression, most notably the 1979 American film GOOD LUCK, MISS WYCKOFF, aka THE SHAMING, where she played a 40-year-old spinster schoolteacher in a small town in the 1950s who loses her virginity via rape and falls in love with her attacker. Domenico Paolella's STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN (starring Catherine Spaak and Suzy Kendall) really got the ball rolling in 1973, which he followed quickly that same year with Heywood, back for more nunsploitative action in THE NUNS OF ST. ARCHANGEL. After that, the floodgates were open, with Florinda Bolkan in Gianfranco Mingozzi's FLAVIA THE HERETIC (1974), Francoise Prevost in Sergio Grieco's THE SINFUL NUNS OF ST. VALENTINE (1974), Susan Hemingway in Jess Franco's LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN (1977), Laura Gemser in Giuseppe Vari's SISTER EMANUELLE (1977), Anita Ekberg in Giulio Berruti's KILLER NUN (1978), Ligia Branice in Walerian Borowcyk's BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (1978), Paola Senatore in Joe D'Amato's IMAGES IN A CONVENT (1979), Zora Kerova in Bruno Mattei's THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA (1980), and Eva Grimaldi in D'Amato's fashionably late CONVENT OF SINNERS in 1986. Though Italy was the primary purveyor of Nunsploitation, Japan got into the act with 1974's SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST, 1976's CLOISTERED NUN: RUNA'S CONFESSION, and 1978's SISTER LUCIA'S DISHONOR, among a handful of others.
Like any genre fad that overstays its welcome and starts showing signs of running its course, Nunsploitation films got increasingly abhorrent, transgressive, and grubby-looking as time went on. They also tried experimenting with subgenre crossover in an attempt to shake things up. Franco Prosperi's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH (1978) combined Nunsploitation with the post-LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT/I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE rape/revenge subgenre, with Florinda Bolkan as a Mother Superior with a group of young girls being terrorized by a crew of rapists led by Ray Lovelock. Another example is THE OTHER HELL, which was shot simultaneously in 1980 with the same crew and much of the same cast as THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA. Bruno Mattei (STRIKE COMMANDO) and writer Claudio Fragasso (TROLL 2) were the creative forces behind both, but while Mattei focused most of his attention on MONZA, Fragasso did the majority of the shot-calling on THE OTHER HELL, with both men splitting directorial duties over both films and credited under the shared pseudonym "Stefan Oblowsky." THE OTHER HELL deals with the requisite convent full of sexually repressed nuns, with Mother Superior Sister Vincenza (Franca Stoppi) convinced an evil force has been unleashed after two nuns appear to commit suicide under mysterious circumstances. Father Valerio (Lucio Fulci regular Carlo De Mejo) is sent by the Archbishop (Tom Felleghy) to investigate after an older priest, Father Inardo (Andrea Aureli, credited as "Andrew Ray") proves ineffective and later set ablaze by a supernatural force. There's a whole lot of very little that happens in THE OTHER HELL for the first hour and change. It's hobbled by a ponderously slow pace and cheap-looking cinematography that borders on the barely watchable, with some fleeting bits of chuckle-inducing lunacy like Sister Assunta's (Paola Montenero) rant about how "the genitals are the door to evil!" or a striking giallo-like discovery of a room filled with hanging, unclothed dolls lost amidst a lot of Valerio walking around and asking questions, the requisite stone-walling from Sister Vincenza, a few mysterious deaths, and an obvious red herring in twitchy groundskeeper Boris (Franco Garofalo, credited as "Frank Garfeeld"), the kind of socially-inept creep who grins a little too much when he has to cut the head off a chicken to prepare dinner.
But then something strange happens. There's a big revelation about a secret Sister Vincenza is hiding, all hell breaks loose, and suddenly, THE OTHER HELL gets its shit together and turns into a really good and genuinely atmospheric horror movie, almost like Mattei and Fragasso are trying to put a Dario Argento spin on the Nunsploitation genre. They essentially go for broke and just start throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, turning a laborious dud into a dizzying, nonsensical Eurotrash mishmash of sexual repression, black magic, scientific mumbo jumbo, possession, exorcism, catchy Goblin cues recycled from BEYOND THE DARKNESS and two of their older albums, 1976's Roller and 1978's Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagorozzo Mark (much like Mattei swiped huge chunks of Goblin's DAWN OF THE DEAD score for his 1980's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD), and a couple of zombies because hey, why not? Giving a further boost to THE OTHER HELL's sudden jolt of life is another unhinged freakout of a performance by Stoppi--the Eva Green of early '80s Italian sleaze--breaking out every bonkers move in her batshit repertoire for the final act. Stoppi--who has a small but devoted cult following thanks to her unforgettable performance as Iris, the (wait for it) sexually repressed and maniacally insane housekeeper hopelessly in love with her necrophile employer (Kieran Canter) in BEYOND THE DARKNESS (aka BURIED ALIVE)--keeps things rather restrained for much of THE OTHER HELL, but about the same time that Mattei and Fragasso decide "Fuck it, whatever," she unleashes the beast, turning Sister Vincenza into a character almost as memorable as Iris. A tireless animal rights activist in Italy after she quit acting in the mid '80s, Stoppi died in 2011 at the age of 64, but a 2002 archival interview with her appears on Severin's new Blu-ray release of THE OTHER HELL and shows she had a good sense of humor about these kinds of movies. She comes off as thoroughly charming and thankfully nothing at all like the shrieking, wild-eyed crazy bitches she so excelled at playing onscreen.
Franca Stoppi (1946-2011)
Released in Italy in 1981, THE OTHER HELL didn't turn up in the US until the fall of 1985, when the short-lived Film Concept Group, a restructured Motion Picture Marketing co-owned by mobster-turned-future born again Christian motivational speaker Michael Franzese, acquired it and retitled it GUARDIAN OF HELL. That title actually makes a little more sense given what transpires, but the title was changed back to THE OTHER HELL when Vestron Video released it on VHS in 1987 with new artwork. FCG had GUARDIAN/OTHER in US theaters at the same time as another already several-years-old Italian acquisition, Andrea Bianchi's incredible Oedipal epic BURIAL GROUND, and below is visual proof of them playing in a first-run theater in Toledo, OH at the same time. It's hard to believe that actually happened, but there it is. FCG only released a few titles before folding, including Paul Naschy's THE CRAVING in 1985 (a retitling of 1980's THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF), Mattei's RATS in 1986, Bobby A. Suarez's Filipino post-nuke WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE in 1986, and John Grissmer's BLOOD RAGE re-edit NIGHTMARE AT SHADOW WOODS in 1987. I'm not sure how FCG managed to get such schlocky films prime spots in first-fun theaters, but I'd like to think it involved Franzese reminding a National Amusements regional manager "Nice little five-screen ya got there in Toledo...be a real shame if somethin' happened to it."
GUARDIAN OF HELL opening in Toledo, OH
on September 13, 1985, at the same theater as
BURIAL GROUND, somehow in its second week.
MEET HIM AND DIE (Italy/West Germany - 1976) Directed by Franco Prosperi. Written by Peter Berling, Antonio Cucca, Claudio Fragasso, Alberto Marras. Cast: Ray Lovelock, Martin Balsam, Elke Sommer, Riccardo Cucciolla, Ettore Manni, Heinz Domez, Ernesto Colli, Peter Berling. (Unrated, 94 mins)
Raro USA has done a fine job bringing cult classic 1970s poliziotteschi and other Eurocult gems to DVD and Blu-ray over the last few years, frequently in comprehensive, near Criterion-level packaging (their first box set of Fernando Di Leo crime films, featuring CALIBER 9, THE ITALIAN CONNECTION, THE BOSS, and RULERS OF THE CITY is absolutely essential). There have been stumbles along the way: a pressing error caused the entire run of Massimo Dallamano's THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY (1970) to be recalled, the DVD release of Di Leo's TO BE TWENTY (1978) had a glitch that causes it to skip the last chapter of the film, forcing you to go to the chapter selections to see the end of the movie, and their recent Blu-ray release of Umberto Lenzi's NIGHTMARE CITY (1980) has been knocked for its subpar transfer that doesn't even look as good as the decade-plus-old Anchor Bay DVD. You can't knock them all out of of the park, but their edition of MEET HIM AND DIE is an unmitigated disaster of shit-the-bed proportions.
The movie itself is fine--it's not the best polizia and it's not where one should start when exploring the subgenre, but it's an entertaining action thriller. The plot is filled with shootouts, double-crosses, and some nicely-done chase sequences. Massimo (Ray Lovelock of LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN) is busted for holding up a jewelry store and sent to prison. It's revealed very early that he's actually an undercover cop, ostensibly posing as a criminal to help orchestrate an escape for incarcerated mob boss Giulianelli (Martin Balsam), who's still overseeing his smuggling operation from the inside and the cops know there's bigger fish to catch. But Massimo's ultimate goal is to use Giulianelli to get to Perrone (Ettore Manni), who employs the two goons who shot and paralyzed his mother. From the action to the memorable score by Ubaldo Continiello to--if you watch the English track--the appearances of all the usual suspects in the dubbing world (Balsam--the same year he co-starred in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN--dubs himself, while Lovelock is voiced by Ted Rusoff, and Elke Sommer turns up about an hour in and is dubbed by Pat Starke), MEET HIM AND DIE is a perfectly serviceable polizia. There's nothing new here, but fans will find a lot to enjoy.
That is, if they can get past the botched transfer. Whether it was Raro's doing or them just working with what they had, the DNR (digital noise reduction) here is off-the-charts. It's as bad as the infamous PREDATOR Blu-ray. In the long shots, it actually looks sort-of OK, but close-ups of the actors--and director Franco Prosperi (more on him in a bit) uses a lot of close-ups--look like they're coated in a waxy glaze, all lines and definition completely removed as everyone just has a smooth, lifeless appearance, surrounded by garish, overly-bright colors. All the grain has been removed, with a fake grain sort-of "hovering" over the image (Blue Underground's Blu-ray release of Dario Argento's THE CAT O'NINE TAILS is a horrific example of this), and it's most noticeable whenever Riccardo Cucciolla (as Massimo's boss) is on screen--watch how the designs on his loud sport jackets sort of move. Sure, there are some moments where it's not awful-looking, but for the most part, this is a horribly ugly transfer and indicative of everything people misunderstand about the concept of high-definition. This is not how movies should look. This is not how film looks, especially when it's one from the mid-1970s. It's anti-HD.
As if the transfer and the absurd levels of DNR weren't bad enough, Raro completely embarrasses itself with the accompanying booklet. There's an essay about the film by polizia expert Mike Malloy, who recently directed the documentary EUROCRIME, which looks at the genre and interviews virtually every still-living actor who appeared in them. Malloy obviously knows his shit, and his essay, as well as a video segment in the bonus features where he talks about the movie, the actors, and the subgenre itself, are nicely-done (I liked his description of the Italians latching on to what was popular--peplum, spaghetti westerns, crime movies--and "strip-mining" it until everyone was completely exhausted with it). But there's also a two-page bio of Prosperi and an accompanying filmography, and here lies the problem: as strange as it seems, there were two Franco Prosperi's working in Italian cinema from the 1960s to the 1980s. The MEET HIM AND DIE Prosperi was a genre and exploitation journeyman who dabbled in a little of everything over his mostly unexceptional career (007 ripoffs in the '60s, horror films in the '70s, and CONAN ripoffs in the '80s). The two-page bio is for the other Franco Prosperi, best known for co-directing, with Gualtiero Jacopetti, the MONDO CANE documentaries. The filmography listed after the bio? That's for the correct (MEET HIM AND DIE) Franco Prosperi. Now, I don't expect the general public to know (or care) that there are two very different Franco Prosperi's--I didn't know until a few years ago and even the most hardcore Eurotrash disciple has gotten them confused at some point in their travels. But shouldn't someone at Raro maybe not fallen asleep at the wheel? Was anyone paying attention? Was anyone in charge of proofreading or fact-checking? Did they even watch the video that Malloy shot for them? Because he specifically mentions the "two different Franco Prosperi's" phenomenon and he specifically says "The director of MEET HIM AND DIE is not the guy who made MONDO CANE." Can you imagine Criterion ever making a gaffe that egregious? Did anyone not find it odd that the bio of Prosperi made no mention of the film in which it's packaged? Malloy is the only credited author of the booklet, but it's obvious from his video segment that he didn't write the bio, since he knows it's not the correct Prosperi. So, between the shitty picture quality and the careless packaging, is there any reason at all to get behind this tire fire of a Blu-ray release? The relatively obscure MEET HIM AND DIE (which may have had some brief US exposure under the title RISKING) is far from essential, but even the worst polizia deserves better than what it gets here: a release that does nothing for the film, the genre, either Franco Prosperi, or Raro USA's sinking reputation. This whole package is riddled with the kind of bush-league fuck-ups that make you hesitant to purchase anything else they release in the future. Get it together, guys.
Written and directed by Lewis Coates (Luigi Cozzi). Cast: Lou Ferrigno, Sybil Danning, Brad Harris, William Berger, Rossana Podesta, Ingrid Anderson, Mirella D'Angelo, Bobby Rhodes, John Garko (Gianni Garko), Yehuda Efroni, Delia Boccardo, Claudio Cassinelli, Frank Garland (Franco Garofalo), Gabriella George (Gabriella Giogelli), Steven Candell (Stelio Candelli), Eva Robbins, Roger Larry (Rocco Lerro). (PG, 99 mins)
When THE INCREDIBLE HULK ended its five-season run on CBS in 1982, two-time Mr. Universe Lou Ferrigno wanted to achieve the big-screen success that his PUMPING IRON rival Arnold Schwarzenegger was enjoying with the hit film CONAN THE BARBARIAN. The opportunity presented itself when he was approached by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus about several projects for Cannon, including a new version of HERCULES. It was a dream come true for Ferrigno, who got into a bodybuilding during his teen years as a way of building his self-confidence and to combat bullying after an early childhood ear infection caused him to lose 80% of his hearing. Ferrigno discovered what would become one of his biggest inspirations when his father took eight-year-old Lou to see Steve Reeves in HERCULES in 1959, so he couldn't turn down the chance to make his own mark with a remake of a film that was such a milestone in his life.
Perhaps wanting a more traditional "Hercules" feel (but probably doing the math and realizing it would be cheaper to do it this way), Golan and Globus farmed HERCULES out to their Italian branch, which was being run by John Thompson, now an executive with Avi Lerner's Cannon cover band Millennium/NuImage. According to a 1992 Starlog interview with co-star Sybil Danning, the original script for HERCULES was filled with generous amounts of violence and sex, much like the very R-rated CONAN THE BARBARIAN. But as the project was near and dear to Ferrigno's heart and he likely didn't want to risk turning away the younger fan base he amassed from THE INCREDIBLE HULK, he and his wife Carla instituted some changes to make the film much more PG-ready and kid-friendly. What resulted was a bizarre collection of vignettes with a distinct sci-fi edge, with the retooled script liberally borrowing more from STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, and CLASH OF THE TITANS than it did from CONAN (Danning referred to the completed film as "a bad episode of FAERIE TALE THEATER"). Former Dario Argento associate Luigi Cozzi (using his regular pseudonym "Lewis Coates"), who had a minor drive-in hit with 1979's STAR WARS ripoff STARCRASH, was hired to write and direct the film and brought with him STARCRASH special effects designer Armando Valcauda, whose stop-motion animation and time-lapse photography techniques were antiquated at best, and laughable at worst, even more so coming at the end of a summer ruled by RETURN OF THE JEDI. So what began as a full-blooded sword-and-sandal saga for grown-ups turned into a cheap-looking, childish sci-fi adventure whose pitiful visual effects and cheesy dubbing (even Ferrigno, his natural voice affected by his hearing loss, would be dubbed by someone else in all of his Italian-made Cannon productions) got it laughed off multiplex screens nationwide when it opened in US theaters in late August 1983. Instead of Schwarzenegger-sized stardom, Ferrigno and the film were rewarded with a slew of Razzie nominations, including Worst Film, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Actor, with Danning winning Worst Supporting Actress (shared for this and her work in CHAINED HEAT) and Lou being named Worst New Star over such competition as Reb Brown in YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE and Cindy & Sandy, the Shrieking Dolphins in JAWS 3-D.
Good luck following the plot: on the moon, Zeus (Claudio Cassinelli) hurls a ball of light to Earth below and it enters the body of a newborn child of royal lineage who becomes baby Hercules. Then Hercules' parents are killed at the behest of the wicked King Minos (William Berger) and his scheming daughter Adriana (Danning), who orders flunky centurion Valcheus (Gianni Garko) to kill the child. When Hercules is sent floating down the river in a basket, a soldier is about to shoot an arrow at him when the idiotic Valcheus instructs him to just let him go, that "the river will take care of him for us." Hercules is then found and raised by childless couple Ma & Pa Kent...er, I mean, Father and Mother (Stelio Candelli, Gabriella Giorgelli). Years later, the grown Hercules finds his father being killed by a wild bear, which Hercules promptly hurls into space, creating a new constellation. When his mother is killed by a flying robot sent to Earth by King Minos, Hercules decides to forge his own path on his way to exacting vengeance on Minos and finding love with Cassiopea (Ingrid Anderson), daughter of the honorable King Augeias (Brad Harris, himself a former 1960s Hercules and another inspiration to Ferrigno), and briefly being turned into a giant by Circe (Mirella D'Angelo). This all leads to a showdown on a narrow catwalk over a bottomless pit with King Minos, who swings a multi-colored laser-y flaming sword that strongly resembles a light saber in a sequence that in no way is meant to look anything like a certain memorable part of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Hercules then defeats Minos by pulling a sword from a golden stone ("This sword consecrated to Zeus fears nothing!"), but it's in no way meant to remind you of EXCALIBUR.
HERCULES is just dreadful, from the lousy special effects to the copious amounts of stock footage from other sword & sandal epics that were at least 20 years old with completely mismatched film stock. Sure, there's some Bad Movie Night value, but it doesn't really get goofy until the climax. Until then, it's deadly dull despite a committed physical performance by Ferrigno, whose as effective-looking a Hercules as his idol Steve Reeves.
THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS (Italy - 1984)
Directed by Bruno Mattei. Written by Claude Fragass (Claudio Fragasso). Cast: Lou Ferrigno, Sybil Danning, Brad Harris, Dan Vadis, Carla Ferrigno, Barbara Pesante, Yehuda Efroni, Mandy Rice-Davies, Robert Mura, Ivan Beshears (Emilio Messina), Jody Wanger (Giovanni Cianfriglia), Michael Franz (Sal Borghese), Gary Levine (Raul Cabrera). (PG, 86 mins)
When HERCULES was released in theaters at the end of the summer of 1983, it was supposed to be Ferrigno staking his claim to Schwarzenegger-level big-screen fame. When that didn't exactly pan out, his subsequent Cannon films didn't get nearly the same rollout as HERCULES. THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS made it into a handful of US theaters exactly a year later in August of 1984, but it was shot before HERCULES, which Cannon and Ferrigno clearly deemed the more important picture in their new partnership. A CONAN-inspired remake of both Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) and its own remake THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS is surprisingly straight-faced and competently-made, considering it's directed by veteran Italian schlock king Bruno Mattei and written by future TROLL 2 director Claudio Fragasso. Mattei and Fragasso worked together throughout the '80s on such revered trash classics as HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980), WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE (1983), RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR (1984) and the legendary STRIKE COMMANDO (1987), and its 1988 sequel, just to name a few, but THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS finds the dynamic duo in rare, restrained form, even making effective use of mostly outdoor locations. Even 1983 Cannon was big-time for these two, so maybe the additional money and answering to Golan & Globus helped them buckle down and stay focused (it also helps that the film necessitates relatively little in the way of inevitably hilarious visual effects), but I'll be damned if Mattei and Fragasso didn't turn in a generally serious and thoroughly watchable film not aimed for the kiddie crowd. Cheap and cheesy, yes...but surprisingly okay, very respectful of its sources, and other than the villain's clothing, not demonstrating much at all in the way of unintentional laughter.
The premise should be familiar to anyone who's seen the older films. Sadistic despot Nicerote (Dan Vadis) raids a village yearly to steal their food. Unable to defend themselves, the citizens, ruled by Nicerote's blind mother Anakora (Barbara Pesante), use a magical sword to guide them to the chosen one who will come to their aid. That turns out to be enslaved gladiator Han (Ferrigno), who brings along aging buddy Scipio (Brad Harris), and the two recruit five more magnificent gladiators along the way, including Julia (Sybil Danning). Ferrigno, Danning, and Harris would also go on to star in HERCULES, though Harris didn't have much to do. Oddly, it's Scipio who gets romantically involved with Julia, while Han only has eyes for village maiden Pandora, which isn't all that surprising when you consider that she's played by Ferrigno's wife Carla. Danning has said in interviews that she and Ferrigno didn't get along very well on either of these films, which may have resulted in her getting a different--and smaller--role in HERCULES than was originally intended. And that's a shame, because she's perfectly cast, even if she's dubbed by Pat Starke, who's here along with most of the golden era Italian dubbing icons.
Dan Vadis (1938-1987)
Vadis, himself a former Hercules and peplum regular in the '60s who had fallen on hard times by the '80s, is suitably hateful is the evil Nicerote. With the '60s muscleman craze finished, Vadis was acting infrequently in the early 1970s until Clint Eastwood started giving him small roles in some of his films (Vadis appeared in 1973's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, 1977's THE GAUNTLET, 1978's EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE, and 1980's BRONCO BILLY and ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN), but the troubled actor was already losing a battle with alcohol and drugs. He was no longer in bodybuilding shape and was rather thin and gaunt-looking by 1983, and wasn't getting much help from his character's ludicrous wardrobe. As was the case with Harris (who also guest-starred on a final-season INCREDIBLE HULK episode), Ferrigno was a big fan of Vadis' old movies in his youth and probably pulled some strings to get him the part. THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS proved to be Vadis' last film: he died of a drug overdose at just 49 in 1987, his body found in his car in the Mojave Desert town of Lancaster, CA.
THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES aka HERCULES II (Italy - 1985)
Written and directed by Lewis Coates (Luigi Cozzi). Cast: Lou Ferrigno, Milly Carlucci, Sonia Viviani, William Berger, Carlotta Green (Carla Ferrigno), Claudio Cassinelli, Nando Poggi, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Venantino Venantini, Laura Lenzi, Margi Newton, Cindy Leadbetter, Serena Grandi, Eva Robbins. (PG, 88 mins)
Operating under the utterly false assumption that audiences were demanding a sequel to HERCULES, Ferrigno and Cozzi reunited for 1985's THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES, released in some parts of the world as HERCULES II. Golan and Globus didn't even put their names on this one, and it doesn't look like they put much money into it, either. With an even more paltry budget than the first go-around, Cozzi relies on quite a bit of recycled footage from the first film (not to mention using the same Pino Donaggio score), so much so in the early going (the eight-minute, whoosh-filled SUPERMAN-inspired opening credits sequence contains highlights from the first film) that it's 17 minutes in before we get a new shot of Ferrigno, and you can tell when Cozzi's using stock footage from the 1983 film because in the new footage, Ferrigno's hair is cut shorter and he isn't nearly as bulky--his shoulders and neck aren't quite as huge and his chest is noticeably smaller. Cozzi's script is just as incoherent as the first: four rebel gods have stolen the seven thunderbolts of Zeus (Claudio Cassinelli), who calls on Hercules (Ferrigno) to recover them and stop the evil and chaos unleashed by their theft. Hercules teams up with two adoptive sisters, Urania (Milly Carlucci) and Glaucia (Sonia Viviani) to help him in his quest. The four rebel gods: Hera (Maria Rosaria Omaggio), Flora (Laura Lenzi), Aphrodite (Margi Newton), and Poseidon (Nando Poggi) resurrect the dead King Minos (William Berger), who is given a protective shield of "cunning, connivance, and chaos" by his snarky sidekick Daedalus (Eva Robbins). Hercules battles various types of weird creatures and is kidnapped by the Spider Queen and imprisoned in her magnetic web before escaping for his final battle with King Minos.
Here's where Cozzi just loses control of the film and lets things go completely bonkers. Just as Hercules and Minos face off--it's important to note that it's bulky 1983 Ferrigno at the beginning of this sequence--there's a couple of odd closeups of a grinning Berger before Minos and Hercules both turn into neon animated figures and begin dueling. Yes...Cozzi and his effects team simply used cheap rotoscoping effects over Hercules and Minos' climactic battle in the 1983 film to present it in a weird neon animated form and pass it off as a new confrontation. But that ends quickly as the animated Minos turns himself into a T-Rex and the animated Hercules becomes a giant gorilla and they start wrestling. The T-Rex Minos then turns into a giant snake and is hurled into space by Gorilla Hercules.
But Cozzi's cut-rate hackery doesn't end there! Cozzi recycles footage from the 1983 film where Circe turned Hercules into a giant, as Zeus calls upon him to "save mankind!" (cue destruction footage from the 1960 Steve Reeves version of THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII) and proceeds to awkwardly construct a climax around inferior-looking, unused workprint footage of Ferrigno from the first film. In other words, the last 20 minutes of THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES consist of two climactic action sequences that were assembled completely without Ferrigno's participation. Cozzi managed to have a Hercules/King Minos showdown with neither Ferrigno nor Berger anywhere near the set. I would've liked to have been in the room when someone said "Hey, a rotoscoped T-Rex and a gorilla! We can do this!"
Considering that Ferrigno isn't really even in the first or last 20 minutes, it's probably a safe bet that they didn't have him for very long or, given the universally negative reception the 1983 film got, maybe he just wasn't all that into it this time. It's hard to believe anyone wanted a sequel to such a dismal film, but it must've been a hit somewhere. In an odd way, THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES is more entertaining than HERCULES, largely because of the batshit looney tunes climax. It's not quite as STAR WARS-influenced as the first film and some of the sets have a more traditional peplum look to them. Cannon didn't give this one the nationwide rollout that HERCULES was granted, only dumping it in a handful of theaters before it appeared on video store shelves and on cable.
SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS (Italy - 1990)
Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. Written by Tito Carpi, Enzo G. Castellari, and Ian Danby. Cast: Lou Ferrigno, John Steiner, Roland Wybenga, Cork Hubbert, Enio Girolami, Haruhiko Yamanouchi, Yehuda Efroni, Alessandra Martines, Teagan, Leo Gullotta, Stefania Girolami, Donal Hodson, Melonee Rodgers, Romano Puppo, Daria Nicolodi, Giada Cozzi, Ted Rusoff. (PG-13, 93 mins)
Luigi Cozzi had a script ready for SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS, which was set to be shot as a miniseries for Italian television right after HERCULES but Cozzi and Ferrigno ended up doing THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES instead. After that, Cannon relieved Cozzi of his duties and turned SINBAD over to veteran journeyman Enzo G. Castellari (STREET LAW, 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS), who rewrote Cozzi's script with frequent collaborator Tito Carpi (with additional rewriting by dubbing veteran Ian Danby), with Cozzi retaining a "Story by" credit under his "Lewis Coates" pseudonym. SINBAD was shot in 1986 and, according to an interview with Cozzi, Castellari had six hours of raw footage that Cannon deemed unusable and the entire project was shelved. Three years later, in an attempt to salvage something of the wreckage, a struggling Cannon rehired Cozzi to take the Castellari footage and construct a 90-minute feature out of it, which obviously explains the disjointed nature of the resulting film, released straight-to-video in late 1990. An attempt was also made to haphazardly tie it into a brief and mostly botched Edgar Allan Poe revival that was taking place (over 1988-1991, there were two new versions of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, plus THE HAUNTING OF MORELLA, THE HOUSE OF USHER, BURIED ALIVE, and Cozzi's own THE BLACK CAT, plus the George A. Romero/Dario Argento collaboration TWO EVIL EYES) by adding a pre-credits crawl claiming the film was based on Poe's short story "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade." Cozzi shot new wraparound sequences with Daria Nicolodi as a mom reading a bedtime story to her daughter (Cozzi's daughter Giada), with extensive voiceover narration valiantly attempting to hold things together. As in THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES, stock footage was utilized to tie up further loose ends (including snippets from two older Ray Harryhausen SINBAD films and even Argento's PHENOMENA), with one amazing shot of Ferrigno's clean-shaven Sinbad about to dive in the water followed by a cut to stock footage from HERCULES of a fully-bearded Ferrigno swimming. Sloppily assembled and with no oversight at all (at one point, courtesy of some careless or desperate editing, Romano Puppo's character is in two places at once), it's a miracle that Cozzi was even able to assemble anything, considering the apparent mess left by Castellari, who's got a number of beloved genre films to his name (including the original 1978 cult classic INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) but was having a really off-day with SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS.
The resulting film understandably feels made up as it goes along, with Ferrigno's heroic Sinbad on a quest to defeat evil wizard Jaffar (John Steiner), who casts a spell over the Caliph of Basra (Donal Hodson) in an attempt to steal his princess daughter (Alessandra Martines) from Prince Ali (Roland Wybenga). Sinbad faces all manner of danger, from zombie knights to styrofoam rock monsters to a wicked sorceress (Melonee Rodgers) and is aided by his faithful companions: Ali, along with the "Viking warrior" (Enio Girolami), Poochie the Dwarf (Cork Hubbert), "the bald cook" (Yehuda Efroni), and "the Chinese soldier of fortune" (played by Japanese Haruhiko Yamanouchi). Sinbad eventually meets the lovely Kyra (Castellari's daughter Stefania Girolami), daughter of a wacky comic relief magician (a shamelessly mugging Leo Gullotta), and is forced to fight an evil clone of himself created by Jaffar. Despite Cozzi's Herculean efforts, SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS makes 90 minutes feel like 90 days, and the whole thing would be a complete washout were it not for one saving grace: Steiner's incredible, insane performance as Jaffar.
Unlike Ferrigno's past Italian efforts, some of the actors in SINBAD were recorded with live sound and not dubbed over (though Lou remains dubbed). British actor Steiner had a long and busy career in Euro-cult cinema (SALON KITTY, SHOCK, CALIGULA, TENEBRE, and countless others), sometimes dubbing himself, sometimes not. His magnificent voice is on full display here, as his perpetually wide-eyed Jaffar preens, sneers, grins, hisses his S's and rolls his R's with mad glee, turning all of his scenes into his personal playground and conducting a virtual seminar in how to perfectly play a camp movie villain, which he dials up even more with the mid-film arrival of his bitchy sidekick Soukra (female bodybuilder Teagan Clive), who asks "Have you taken your medication this morning?" In that respect, we should thank Cannon for rehiring Cozzi to piece together what he could from the stagnant remains of the shelved miniseries. Otherwise, we'd be deprived of Steiner's truly inspired histrionics: watch him shake his fist and yell "I'm winning!" or threaten Sinbad with "You are forcing me to carry out my most devastating act of magical madness!" or the way he yells "Guards!" or, in one of the greatest moments in all of cinema, getting in the princess' face and proclaming "No one, not Prince Ali, not even his friend Sinbad, the man who I hate more than hate itself, will stand between me...and my heart's desire! (long pause) HA!" Steiner doesn't just chew the scenery--he gorges on it with the rabid fervor of Mr. Creosote after skipping breakfast and lunch. Steiner's fully aware that he's in a shit sandwich of a movie, and where most actors would just punch a clock and move on to the next gig, Steiner acts like he's taking center stage in a Cecil B. DeMille production, just blowing everyone off the screen with his deliriously crazed acting. It's surprising that he never attempted to work in major Hollywood movies--there's any number of big budget '80s and '90s action movies where he could've played a perfect over-the-top villain. Steiner's hysterical Jaffar was a bit of a last hurrah for the veteran actor. A few years after SINBAD, he would grow bored with the lack of decent roles and the diminishing paychecks of the declining Italian film industry, prompting him to retire from acting in 1991 and make a completely unpredictable career and life change: at 50, he moved to Los Angeles and became a major Beverly Hills real estate mogul.
Is there any caption that will do this shot justice?
The marriage between Cannon and Ferrigno didn't really work out for either party, though each of the four films have their charms, and THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS, despite a recipe for disaster with Mattei and Fragasso, is the unlikely best of the bunch. Ferrigno has said in interviews that he enjoyed working on all four of these films and has nothing but nice things to say about Cozzi and Castellari. After his ill-fated journey through the Italian B-movie industry, Ferrigno returned to the US and appeared in several INCREDIBLE HULK TV-movies until star Bill Bixby's death in 1993. He also teamed with YOR's Reb Brown in the 1989 cagefighting actioner CAGE and its 1994 sequel CAGE II. Now 61, he's a regular guest at fan conventions as well as a sought-after motivational speaker about overcoming disabilities, and he's also proven willing to poke fun at himself, even spending some time on the Kevin James sitcom THE KING OF QUEENS as next-door neighbor "Lou Ferrigno."
