AENIGMA (Italy/Yugoslavia - 1987) Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written by Giorgio Mariuzzo and Lucio Fulci. Cast: Jared Martin, Lara Naszinski, Ulli Reinthaler, Kathi Wise, Riccardo Acerbi, Sophie D'Aulan, Jennifer Naud, Mijlijana Zirojevic, Dragan Ejelogrlic, Lijlijana Blagojevic, Franciska Spahic, Dusica Zagaric, Lucio Fulci. (Unrated, 89 mins) Having exhausted everything there is to say about Lucio Fulci's early '70s gialli and his trailblazing 1979-1982 gore galore glory days, cult film scholars have reached the point in Fulciology studies where it's time to begin re-examining his much-maligned late-period of 1986-1991. Peak Fulci came to a close after his falling out with producer Fabrizio De Angelis during the making of 1982's underappreciated MANHATTAN BABY, but he did some decent journeyman work on 1983's CONQUEST and the 1984 films THE NEW GLADIATORS and the FLASHDANCE-inspired slasher MURDER ROCK. Health issues kept Fulci sidelined through the rest of 1984 and all of 1985, and 1986's erotic thriller THE DEVIL'S HONEY was the start of what's considered "latter-day Fulci." Aside from gory throwbacks like 1988's ZOMBI 3 (which he left midway through production, citing health concerns, and the film was finished by an uncredited Bruno Mattei) and TOUCH OF DEATH and 1990's meta, self-referential CAT IN THE BRAIN, this period was almost completely dismissed by all but the most devout Fulciphiles. Other than THE DEVIL'S HONEY turning up in US video stores in 1991 as DANGEROUS OBSESSION, none of these later Fulcis made it to America until the post-2000 Eurocult DVD explosion after years of only able to be seen stateside via bootlegs and gray market means. But as the '00s kicked off, all of the late-period Fulci titles began appearing on DVD, courtesy of labels like Shriek Show, Image Entertainment, and Severin. And for the most part, they were as bad as we'd heard during that previous decade where they were difficult to see. None of these films are essential Fulci, but some indeed have their charms and deliver the gory goods, even if they lack the polish and financial backing that he was getting during his heyday. A pair of these later Fulci titles--1987's AENIGMA and 1990's DEMONIA--have just been given 4K restorations and are out on Blu-ray from Severin (because physical media is dead), and while neither are where any Fulci newbie should begin their exploration, they're both worth second looks for the die-hards.
Playing like a bizarre mash-up of CARRIE, JENNIFER, PATRICK, and Dario Argento's PHENOMENA, AENIGMA opens at the fictional St. Mary's College in Boston--though at no point does this Beantown look like anything other than Sarajevo, where this Italian/Yugoslavian co-production was shot--with a group of students, along with lecherous gym instructor Fred (Riccardo Acerbi) plotting a cruel prank on shy, awkward Kathy (Mijlijana Zirojevic). This results in Kathy being run over by a car and left brain-dead on life support at a local hospital, where she's looked after by neurologist Dr. Anderson (requisite American export value Jared Martin, best known for his recurring role as J.R. Ewing nemesis Dusty Farlow on DALLAS). Meanwhile, new transfer student Eva (A BLADE IN THE DARK's Lara Naszinski, niece of Klaus Kinski) gets settled into St. Mary's as she recovers from a nervous breakdown, though she soon becomes a sort-of psychic conduit of Kathy who, with the help of her occasionally glowing-red-eyed mother and school maid "Crazy Mary" (Dusika Zagaric), uses Eva to enact vengeance upon her tormentors.
When you think of Lucio Fulci set pieces, you probably go to the shark vs. zombie clash or the eye-splinter scene in ZOMBIE or maybe the intestine-barfing or drill-through-the-head scenes in THE GATES OF HELL or the razor blade-through-the-nipple bit in THE NEW YORK RIPPER. AENIGMA offers its own memorable sequence with the awesomely gross "death by snails" suffered by Virginia (Kathi Wise), who's eventually covered head-to-toe by snails and slugs in her bed. Fred is attacked by a double that materializes out of a mirror where he's admiring himself and his death is written off as a heart attack, while others are killed by a statue come to life or decapitated, or thrown from a window. Eva--enacting the desires of the comatose Kathy--seduces Dr. Anderson, and their constant fooling around makes Eva's roommate Jenny (Ulli Reinthaler) a third wheel. That is, at least until Eva has another breakdown and gets committed, after which Dr. Anderson starts sleeping with Jenny. Almost all of the characters in AENIGMA are varying degrees of shitty, with horrible teacher Drop Dead Fred and lecherous would-be sugar daddy Dr. Anderson really lowering the bar on male authority figures one should be able to look up to.
AENIGMA isn't top-shelf Fulci by any means, but after many years away from it, it has its entertainment value, even if some if it comes in the form of unintentional laughs, be they the Yugoslavian prop team's attempt at Massachusetts license plates, a shot of a miniature cityscape that could pass as a Lego "Antonio Margheriti Action Playset," the theme song "Head Over Heels" being listed as "Head Over Meels" in the opening credits, or a poster of Yoda on Jenny's wall demonstrating that Fulci really had his finger on the pulse of dorm life for late '80s American college girls. There's also the clarity of HD revealing oopsies like the timing of a red-filtered light during an overhead shot of an oil-slicked Martin/Naszinski sex scene offering a view of Naszinski that's perhaps a bit more proctological than anyone intended. But as it stands, AENIGMA is a not-bad second-tier offering from the waning days of Italian horror. It was produced by corner-cutting Ettore Spagnuolo, who spent most of the second half of the '80s trying to turn Harrison Muller into an action star in films like THE VIOLENT BREED and GETTING EVEN. Spagnuolo managed to get known names at cheap prices, like Henry Silva for THE VIOLENT BREED and Richard Roundtree for GETTING EVEN, but despite his visibility on DALLAS and other American TV shows going back to the late '60s (with requisite stops on FANTASY ISLAND and THE LOVE BOAT), Martin, who didn't even stick around to dub himself, wasn't enough to secure any kind of US distribution deal for AENIGMA, which didn't legitimately appear in America until it was released on DVD by Image Entertainment in the summer of 2001.
DEMONIA (Italy - 1990) Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written by Piero Regnoli and Lucio Fulci. Cast: Brett Halsey, Meg Register, Carla Cassola, Lino Salemme, Christina Engelhardt, Pascal Druant, Grady Thomas Clarkson, Ettore Comi, Michael J. Aronin, Al Cliver, Isabella Corradini, Paola Cozzo, Bruna Rossi, Paola Calati, Antonio Melillo, Francesco Cusimano, Lucio Fulci. (Unrated, 89 mins) Like AENIGMA and most other latter-day Fulci, DEMONIA was a staple of the bootleg VHS circuit in the '90s, finally getting a legit US release when Shriek Show released it on DVD in 2001. It was lumped in with the generally dismissed stretch of product that Fulci was cranking out, like THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS, THE SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS, and what most consider his worst horror film, SODOMA'S GHOST. And like AENIGMA, time has been kind to DEMONIA while still being unquestionably lesser Fulci. Much of that is due to the presentation on Severin's Blu-ray, which really makes both of these films look better than they ever have. Both have that sort-of "gauzy" look that was common with a lot of Italian horror of that time, particularly the product coming off of Joe D'Amato's Filmirage assembly line, but DEMONIA's outdoor scenes--the film was shot on location at Sicily's Capo Bianco and at the San Pellegrino monastery in nearby Caltabellotta--really benefit from the 4K restoration and help at least those portions of the film look a lot better than most of the stuff that was being bankrolled by budget-conscious producer Ettore Spagnuolo.
A frequently nonsensical mix of Michele Soavi's THE CHURCH, Marcello Avallone's SPECTERS, with a little of John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS, with some bonus nunsploitation thrown in for good measure, DEMONIA deals with a team of Canadian archaeology students led by Prof. Evans (veteran American actor Brett Halsey, a late-period Fulci regular at this point after THE DEVIL'S HONEY and TOUCH OF DEATH) on a dig in Sicily. The locals, led by pissed-off butcher Turi (Lino Salemme from the DEMONS movies), don't want them there, but they proceed with their work anyway. The dig has a profound effect on student Liza (Meg Register), who takes part in seances (a shout-out to Catriona MacColl's character in THE GATES OF HELL) and believes in all manner of psychic hooey despite Evans reminding her that she's a scientist. Liza explores the dig on her own and finds a walled-off crypt with the skeletal remains of five crucified nuns. Lilla (Carla Cassola), the local medium--doesn't every superstitious village have one?--fulfills her Basil Exposition duty by informing Liza that in 1486, the five nuns were accused of holding orgies and committing deviant sexual acts in the nunnery after making a pact with Satan, prompting the villagers to crucify and execute them. The spirits of the five nuns now seek vengeance on the town and have established a psychic connection with Liza, which somewhat thematically ties it to the Kathy/Eva situation in AENIGMA. Various gory deaths ensue, including an Evans rival (Fulci stalwart Al Cliver of ZOMBIE, appearing here long enough to get spear-gunned by a topless apparition) whose decapitated head prompts an investigation by the local cops, represented by Lt. Andi (Michael J. Aronin) and his boss Inspector Carter, played by none other than Fulci himself in a prominent supporting role (dubbed by Robert Spafford) that gives him more screen time than his usual cameo.
DEMONIA has a lot of atmosphere in the foreboding catacombs and Fulci even breaks out a Steadicam for a show-offy tracking shot at one point. He also doesn't skimp on the gore--highlights a woman's eyes being clawed out by possessed cats and a graphic wishboning of one of Evans' team--though the shoddy effects are pulled off by the aptly-named Elio Terribili. Co-written by Fulci, Piero Regnoli (BURIAL GROUND), and an uncredited Antonio Tentori (CAT IN THE BRAIN), DEMONIA drags a bit in the middle before all hell breaks loose, and even taking the dubbing into account (no one voices themselves, not even Halsey, who's dubbed by Ted Rusoff), the performances seem stilted and awkward. That's not helped by scenes that drag on without going anywhere--there's a lot of padding to get DEMONIA to feature length, especially the time-killing way Aronin's Andi hems and haws in his prolonged and ultimately pointless confrontation with Halsey's Evans, then Fulci just cuts away and never wraps it up--and Salemme's character is underdeveloped, as Fulci kills him off before the villagers raid the excavation site with torches like an angry mob from an old Universal FRANKENSTEIN movie.
Halsey, who was groomed as a leading man back in the '50s but went to Europe in the '60s after it never panned out, remained a busy character actor who found himself back in Italy in the late '80s, appearing in three Fulci films (four if you count recycled footage in CAT IN THE BRAIN), along with others by the likes of Jess Franco, Antonio Margheriti, Luigi Cozzi, and Bruno Mattei, and the same year he starred in DEMONIA, he landed a supporting role as the second husband of Diane Keaton's Kay Corleone in THE GODFATHER PART III. Despite his long career in Hollywood and abroad, Halsey's name, like Jared Martin's with AENIGMA, wasn't enough to secure any interest in DEMONIA from US home video distributors, nor was Fulci's by that point. Though he looked better here than in his haggard appearance around the time of AENIGMA, Fulci's health would soon take another downturn. He only made two more films--VOICES FROM BEYOND and DOOR TO SILENCE, both in 1991--before being sidelined by diabetes and other related medical issues. He attempted a comeback when it was announced that he would write and direct THE WAX MASK, a HOUSE OF WAX redux produced by Dario Argento, but he died at the age of 68 shortly before production began in 1996. Argento handed THE WAX MASK off to Italian FX master Sergio Stivaletti, with a dedication to Fulci in the opening credits.
ORGASMO aka PARANOIA (Italy/France - 1969) Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Written by Ugo Moretti, Umberto Lenzi and Marie Claire Solleville. Cast: Carroll Baker, Lou Castel, Colette Descombes, Tino Carraro, Lilla Brignone, Franco Pesce, Tina Lattanzi, Jacques Stany, Gaetano Imbro, Sara Simoni, Calisto Calisti. (X, 91 mins/European version, 97 mins) Born in 1931, Carroll Baker had a couple of film and television credits to her name (most notably a supporting turn in the gargantuan epic GIANT) when she became an overnight sensation in the title role as Karl Malden's thumbsucking child bride in 1956's controversial BABY DOLL, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams. It earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination (Ingrid Bergman won for ANASTASIA) and made her one of the most sought-after young talents in Hollywood. But she almost instantly earned a reputation as a troublemaker when, under contract to Warner Bros., she refused to star in TOO MUCH, TOO SOON and voiced her disapproval about the quality of the projects she was being offered. The studio "suspended" her as punishment, which kept her offscreen for nearly two years after BABY DOLL, during which time she bought out her contract--an antiquated system that had been on its way out for years--thus allowing her to choose her own roles. Baker ended up in several big-budget blockbusters like 1958's THE BIG COUNTRY, 1962's HOW THE WEST WAS WON, 1964's CHEYENNE AUTUMN, and 1965's THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, and enjoyed the freedom of experimenting with small indies like the 1961 cult film SOMETHING WILD. But she then found a niche filling the void left by the death of Marilyn Monroe in 1962. Shepherded by producer Joseph E. Levine, Baker became a major sex symbol in films like 1964's THE CARPETBAGGERS, 1965's SYLVIA, and in HARLOW, one of two identically-titled Jean Harlow biopics that opened in the summer of 1965 (Carol Lynley starred in the other one). Baker signed a contract with Levine following THE CARPETBAGGERS and after HARLOW's lukewarm response from critics and moviegoers, she decided she wanted out. Their rocky professional relationship and subsequent legal battle became tabloid fodder as Baker found herself persona non grata in Hollywood, with the powerful Levine essentially blackballing her out of the industry.
With no job offers on the table and having just gone through a divorce, Baker took her two children (including future actress Blanche Baker, best known as Molly Ringwald's center-of-attention older sister in SIXTEEN CANDLES) and moved to Italy to test the waters of the European film industry. She starred in Marco Ferrari's 1967 comedy HER HAREM and followed it with Romolo Guerrieri's 1968 thriller THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH, the latter leading to a string of erotic Italian thrillers that kept Baker very busy for several years. She ended up living and working exclusively in Europe until the late '70s, most notably in four collaborations with journeyman Italian genre specialist Umberto Lenzi (1931-2017), later to make his mark with a series of poliziotteschi classics like 1974's ALMOST HUMAN and 1976's ROME ARMED TO THE TEETH, and 1981's infamous cannibal gut-muncher CANNIBAL FEROX, aka MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY. The four Lenzi/Baker gialli, filled with shagadelic sex, suspense, and a plethora of Eurolounge jams, have just been restored and compiled in a comprehensive Blu-ray box set from Severin Films, because physical media is dead.
The wonderfully-titled ORGASMO, released with an X rating in the US by Commonwealth United as PARANOIA, was the first of Baker's four gialli with Lenzi. It's luridly trashy and, at least in its oddly more explicit American cut, almost qualifies as softcore porn, with Baker one of the first big-name American actresses to unabashedly embrace the changing times and go all-in on gratuitous nude scenes. In ORGASMO, she stars as Kathryn West, a trophy wife-turned-wealthy widow taking up residence in an expansive Italian villa as her late husband's attorney Brian (Tino Carraro) begins liquidating his holdings--which include their estate in America, two oil companies, two TV stations, and a chain of department stores--which will net her at least a $200 million payday. At the villa, it's just Kathryn, sneering housekeeper Teresa (Lilla Brignone), and deaf, doddering handyman Martino (Franco Pesce), but that changes when stranger Peter's (Lou Castel) car breaks down outside the entrance gate. It doesn't take much for sex-starved Kathryn to turn into broke-ass Peter's nympho sugar mama with a thing for degradation games, and when he moves in, his sister Eva (Colette Descombes) suddenly turns up to crash there as well. This begins a whirlwind of booze, pills, and sex, with seductive Eva unleashing Kathryn's unexplored lesbian side and a willingness to partake in threesomes with a brother and sister. But when she catches Peter and Eva in bed without her, things quickly go south and the party's over. Peter and Eva start manipulating her, forcing her to fire Teresa and Martino, psychologically torture her with head games and blaring loud music into her room, and are soon controlling every aspect of her life--usually by keeping her drugged--in a plot to take control of her fortune, with some backup photos of their various sexcapades just in case blackmail become necessary.
The longer ORGASMO goes on, the darker and more nihilistic it gets on its way to a ruthlessly fatalistic finale that offers a one-two punch of ball-crushing twists. Lenzi's preferred Italian cut, ORGASMO, runs 97 minutes and tones down a good amount of the sex, while the more explicit PARANOIA is actually six minutes shorter, removing mostly minor details except in the case of almost the entirety of Jacques Stany's performance as a mystery man tailing Kathryn. He's only fleetingly seen in the PARANOIA cut and even that's probably unintentional. Both endings reach the same conclusion, and ORGASMO's explains a bit more, but I think I prefer the more impactful abruptness of the PARANOIA finale. Both versions are included in on the Blu-ray, and either way, this is a twisted bit of occasionally psychedelic 1969 nastiness that still plays surprisingly well in the era of obligatory insane twist endings. Of interest to French cinephiles is the involvement of 28-year-old future filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (DEATH WATCH, COUP DE TORCHON, ROUND MIDNIGHT), credited here as assistant director.
ORGASMO, under its US title PARANOIA,
opening in Toledo, OH on 12/12/1969
SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE (Italy/France/West Germany - 1969) Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Written by Ernesto Gastaldi. Cast: Carroll Baker, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Erika Blanc, Horst Frank, Helga Line, Beryl Cunningham, Ermelnida De Felice, Gianni Di Benedetto, Dario Michaelis, Renato Pinciroli, Lucio Rama, Paola Scalzi, Luigi Sportelli. (Unrated, 93 mins) Lenzi and Baker immediately followed ORGASMO with the equally tantalizingly-titled SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE, but the resulting film--neither sweet nor perverse--paled in comparison despite the involvement of genre luminaries like producer Sergio Martino and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. A Paris-set giallo variation on DIABOLIQUE, SO SWEET stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as Jean Reynaud, a wealthy French businessman and serial philanderer already running around on Danielle (Erika Blanc), his wife of three years who's apparently been withholding ("What do you expect when I can't get my slice of cake in my own home?" he asks after telling her "You're not jealous...you're just bitchy"). He's intrigued by Nicole (Baker), who's just moved into the penthouse above theirs with her abusive, control-freak boyfriend Klaus (Horst Frank). Jean hears Klaus beating Nicole regularly, and his hero complex kicks in when the two quickly fall in love after Jean promises to get her away from Klaus and run away with her. Danielle has been tolerant of Jean's comparatively discreet dalliances so far--most recently with Helene (Helga Line), the bored wife of a hunting club acquaintance (Gianni Di Benedetto)--but his carrying on with Nicole, in full view of their fellow tenants and others in their upper-class social circle, is too much for her to handle. Plus, an enraged Klaus is also following the cheating couple around, even to a weekend island getaway where he torments them by driving his speedboat along the shore and glaring at them.
Never released theatrically in the US, SO SWEET is pretty tedious for its first half before things finally rev up, but once you recognize it following the DIABOLIQUE template, you'll know almost exactly where it's going. The now-90-year-old Trintignant, then becoming an international superstar with films like 1966's A MAN AND A WOMAN, Costa-Gavras' 1969 Oscar-winner Z, and Bernardo Bertolucci's 1970 breakthrough THE CONFORMIST, has apparently said in that past that SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE is his worst film. I haven't seen enough Trintignant films to know for sure, and even then, I don't think I'd quite go that far, but it is a disappointingly lukewarm affair for Lenzi and Baker after the lewd excesses of the gonzo ORGASMO. Baker switches gears by not playing the victim here, and leaves most of the gratuitous nudity to Blanc (Baker does get one slo-mo topless run along a beach in a dream sequence, but some existing stills indicate more Baker and Line nudity that Lenzi opted to not use), but the execution of the familiar narrative just doesn't really have a spark despite the talent involved. It does have an undeniably catchy score by Riz Ortolani that includes the theme song "Why," belted out in an almost Tom Jones fashion by J. Vincent Edwards, who would later make a fortune co-writing Maxine Nightingale's 1975 radio hit "Right Back Where We Started From." Lenzi liked "Why" so much that he recycled it in his 1972 Baker-less giallo SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS.
A QUIET PLACE TO KILL aka PARANOIA (Italy/Spain/France - 1970; US release 1973) Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Written by Marcello Coscia, Bruno Di Geronimo, Rafael Romero Marchent, Marie Claire Solleville. Cast: Carroll Baker, Jean Sorel, Anna Proclemer, Luis Davila, Marina Coffa, Liz Halvorsen, Alberto Dalbes, Hugo Blanco, Jacques Stany, Rossana Rovere, Calisto Calisti, Manuel Diaz Velasco. (Unrated, 96 mins).
"I couldn't help myself. I had to make love with you one more time."
"Whore." That dialogue exchange gives you a pretty good idea of what A QUIET PLACE TO KILL is all about. The third Lenzi/Baker teaming is a big improvement over SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE and has more in common with the trashy histrionics of ORGASMO. A QUIET PLACE TO KILL has always been a point of confusion for some giallo fans, since its original European title was PARANOIA, which was also the American title of ORGASMO. Thus, this PARANOIA is now most commonly known by its export title, A QUIET PLACE TO KILL. Here, Baker plays Helen, an American expat and professional racing driver whose career comes to an abrupt end after a fiery crash during a test drive. Barely making it out alive, she's ordered to relax and recuperate, and is summoned by her conceited ex-husband Maurice (Jean Sorel, Baker's co-star in THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH) to his vacation home on Mallorca. They haven't spoken since their divorce three years ago--and it's mentioned in possibly joking fashion that she tried to kill him--but when she arrives, she's shocked to find he's now married to the older Constance (Anna Proclemer). Helen has barely had time to settle in when Constance offers her $100,000 to help her kill Maurice, giving her the weekend to think it over while she goes off to visit her college-age daughter Susan (Marina Coffa). Instead, Helen decides to spend the weekend indulging in carnal sexcapades with Maurice, and upon Constance's return, the three go out on Maurice's boat but Helen is unable to go through with Constance's plan. A scuffle ensues, Constance is stabbed to death, and as they're tying an anchor around her legs before tossing her corpse in the sea, they're spotted by Maurice's buddy Harry (frequent Jess Franco actor Alberto Dalbes) and his wife Solange (Liz Halvorsen) who are approaching on their yacht. Maurice capsizes the boat on purpose, letting Constance's corpse fall overboard, then telling everyone she got hit in the head by the boon and went under. Maurice's period of mourning is short-lived, as he's back in the sack with Helen that night, but then things get really awkward when Susan turns up and, seeing her stepfather and his ex-wife barely even attempting to hide their sexual shenanigans, makes it clear that she's on to them and isn't buying what happened to her mother.
Lenzi and the team of writers have quite a few tricks up their sleeve and A QUIET PLACE TO KILL is a very lively and thoroughly misanthropic thriller where alliances constantly shift, everyone has something to hide, and everyone is desperately scrambling and failing to keep those secrets hidden. It's not as over-the-top and X-worthy as ORGASMO, but something unexpectedly wild or downright sleazy happens every few minutes--Maurice and Constance on opposite sides of Helen at dinner, and both unknowingly playing footsie with her, Maurice complaining in a crowded restaurant that Helen was too frigid in bed when they were married, Susan's jaw-dropping reveal of how her mother ended up hooking up with Maurice--and you can't help but marvel at the utterly awful characters making up this ensemble of sociopaths. It's pretty clear early on that Helen is a self-absorbed bitch when her loyal assistant (Jacques Stany) picks her up at the hospital and stops for beverages at a carryout, only to have Helen slide over in the driver's seat and take off, leaving him stranded. This one is a lot of fun, plus it's got a brief appearance by Wess and the Airedales "Just Tell Me" during a nightclub scene, and it's the same song used to drive Baker's character crazy in ORGASMO. A QUIET PLACE TO KILL never made it to American theaters, but did turn up in an Avco-Embassy TV syndication package in 1973.
KNIFE OF ICE (Italy/Spain - 1972) Directed by Umberto Lenzi. Written by Umberto Lenzi and Antonio Troiso. Cast: Carroll Baker, Alan Scott, Evelyn Stewart (Ida Galli), Eduardo Fajardo, Silvia Monelli, George Rigaud, Franco Fantasia, Rosa M. Rodriguez, Dada Gallotti, Lorenzo Robledo, Mario Pardo, Olga Gherardi, Consalvo Dell'Arti, Jose Marco, Luca Sportelli. (Unrated, 92 mins) Lenzi and Baker's fourth and final collaboration was the 1972 giallo KNIFE OF ICE, which opens with gory footage of a bullfight and a bullshit Poe quote and then spends much of its duration setting up a third act bait-and-switch leading to its twist ending. Of course, it might not be that much of a surprise considering that the deck is stacked with so many obvious red herrings, but it's still a solid second-tier entry in the cycle. It's also the only one of these that keeps Baker clothed the entire time, casting her against type as Martha, a shy, demure woman who's been mute since her parents died in a tragic train accident when she was a teenager. She was raised by her Uncle Ralph (George Rigaud) and still lives with him at his estate near the Pyrenees. She's visited by her cousin Jenny (Ida Galli, using her "Evelyn Stewart" pseudonym), a famous singer who's stabbed to death in the garage the morning after she arrives. There's any number of possible suspects, including sinister chauffeur Marcos (Eduardo Fajardo), who's always lurking somewhere; housekeeper Mrs. Britton (Silvia Monelli); Dr. Laurent (Alan Scott), who shows up the next day with drops of blood on his pants; and local priest Father Martin (Jose Marco), who's raising his orphaned pre-teen niece Christina (Rosa M. Rodriguez). Bizarre Satanic symbols start appearing around town, including a goat's head painted on a tree that catches the attention of Mrs. Britton just before she's murdered while out running errands. This immediately makes a loud-and-proud area Satanist with creepy eyes (Mario Pardo) the main suspect, especially with the discovery of another body outside of town that may be tied into the current string of murders.
Lenzi gets a good amount of suspense going once helpless Martha is alone in the house, and as goofy as the out-of-nowhere twist ending is, it's effective. Baker is very good in Audrey Hepburn/WAIT UNTIL DARK mode, and KNIFE OF ICE gets a nice Italian horror vibe going with an electronic score by Marcello Giombini--with some help from the inimitable wordless vocals of Edda dell'Orso--that prefigures some of Goblin's work for Dario Argento. The appearance of a walking, quacking Donald Duck is an unnerving image at a pivotal moment, and in having the priest among the suspects, KNIFE OF ICE flirts with the recurring "distrust of the clergy" motif important to so many gialli, including Lucio Fulci's DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, Aldo Lado's WHO SAW HER DIE? and Antonio Bido's THE BLOODSTAINED SHADOW.
Umberto Lenzi with Carroll Baker and
Jean-Louis Trintignant on the set of
SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE
KNIFE OF ICE might've been the end of the line for the Lenzi/Baker collaborations, but she appeared in other European genre titles over the next several years, including long-forgotten gialli like Eugenio Martin's THE FOURTH VICTIM (1971), Osvaldo Civirani's THE DEVIL WITH SEVEN FACES (1971), Gianfranco Piccioli's THE FLOWER WITH THE DEADLY STING (1973), and Luigi Scattini's THE BODY (1974). While it was ignored at the time, BABA YAGA, a 1973 live-action version of the erotic comics of Guido Crepax, found a new audience in the early days of DVD and, with the exception of these Lenzi gialli, has probably become the most well-known title from Baker's Euro sojourn. Most of these films never had US theatrical distribution and only a few of them surfaced on video in the '80s. By the mid '70s, there was a marked decline in the quality of work Baker was being offered in Europe. She started appearing in softcore Italian sex comedies with titles like AT LAST, AT LAST (1975) and the "Hot for Teacher" prototypes THE PRIVATE LESSON (1975) and MY FATHER'S WIFE (1976), while the scuzzy Spanish thriller BLOODBATH--shot in 1975 but unreleased until 1979--paired her with her GIANT co-star Dennis Hopper, just entering his barely employable coke years as a junkie poet named "Chicken." She made a brief return to America for the deranged 1977 black comedy ANDY WARHOL'S BAD, but by 1978, with her name misspelled "Carrol Baker" in the credits, she was reduced to appearing in the grimy CYCLONE, where Mexican exploitation auteur Rene Cardona Jr. combined the cannibalism of his 1976 hit SURVIVE with the shark attacks of his 1977 JAWS ripoff TINTORERA and wrapped them an in Irwin Allen-inspired disaster scenario.
Carroll Baker doing a Q&A at an event in 2019
Baker returned to America by 1980, appeared with Bette Davis in the Disney movie THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS, and then entered the character actor phase of her career, with solid supporting turns throughout the decade in Bob Fosse's harrowing STAR 80 (1983), the Jack Nicholson/Meryl Streep drama IRONWEED (1987), and the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy KINDERGARTEN COP (1990). She had guest spots on TV shows like MURDER, SHE WROTE and L.A. LAW, and had her most prominent late-career role as Michael Douglas' housekeeper in David Fincher's THE GAME (1997). Now 89, Baker seems to have retired from acting, her last role to date being a guest spot as Rob Lowe's mother on his short-lived 2003 NBC series THE LYON'S DEN. She still makes occasional public appearances and as recently as late 2019, was still giving interviews, some of which can be found on YouTube. Unfortunately, she doesn't take part in any of the extras on Severin's Lenzi/Baker collection, though in the past and in two memoirs, she has spoken very favorably of her experiences in the Italian film industry and didn't view the giallo period of her career with any sense of disdain or dismissal.
AMERICAN RICKSHAW aka AMERICAN TIGER (Italy - 1989; US release 1991) Directed by Martin Dolman (Sergio Martino). Written by Sauro Scavolini, Roberto Leoni and Maria Perrone Capano. Cast: Mitch Gaylord, Daniel Greene, Victoria Prouty, Donald Pleasence, Michi Kobi, Roger Pretto, Regina Rodriguez, Darin De Paul, Judi Clayton, Glenn Maska, Carmen Lopez, Gregg Todd Davis, Sherrie Rose, Von B. Von Lindenberg. (Unrated, 96 mins) Like me, if you saw the generic-looking AMERICAN TIGER VHS cover art to the left in the video store back in the early '90s, you probably didn't even give it a second glance. There was Mitch Gaylord, who led the gold medal-winning US gymnastics team at the 1984 Summer Olympics on his way to washing out as a leading man in the 1986 flop AMERICAN ANTHEM, slumming in what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill Italian-made actioner of some sort with the meaningless tag line "Miami just got hotter..." just in case the pastel color scheme didn't already vaguely remind you of MIAMI VICE. Oh, what a foolish mistake we made by dismissing this and putting this back on the shelf! Released in Europe in 1989 under its original title AMERICAN RICKSHAW, the film was retitled by Academy Entertainment for its 1991 straight-to-video release in the US, and you almost have to wonder if the marketing people at Academy ever bothered to watch it.
For about an hour, it's a somewhat slow-moving and barely-coherent hodgepodge of action, blackmail, sex, intrigue, religious cults, supernatural horror, and nonsensical Asian mysticism with some bonus inaccurate folklore that has about as much legitimacy as the old Calgon "Ancient Chinese Secret!" commercial. It seems as if director Sergio Martino (under his frequent '80s pseudonym "Martin Dolman") and co-writers Sauro Scavolini (YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY) and Roberto Leoni (THE FINAL EXECUTIONER, SANTA SANGRE) are riffing on BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, and it progresses in a weird enough way until the last half hour, when AMERICAN RICKSHAW goes so off-the-rails bonkers on a one-way trip to Crazytown that even attempting to explain it is an exercise in futility. The fact that there's almost no cult following around this thing has to be blamed on either that bland Academy Entertainment VHS cover (the Italian poster seen above at least appears to sell the supernatural angle) or on people who did rent it ejecting it halfway through out of boredom, while the select few who are aware of it have done a good job of keeping it to themselves. That finally seems to be changing, as AMERICAN RICKSHAW is one of the inaugural releases of the new Blu-ray company Cauldron Films, because physical media is dead. It probably ranks second on the list of 2020's insane Blu-ray resurrections, right after Arrow's WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!), and like that film, it warms my heart to know that there's still mind-blowing gems like this hiding out there, overlooked in their day and patiently waiting all these years to be unearthed.
Much like what happened with NYC and Atlanta in the late '70s and early '80s and with Fabrizio De Angelis' hostile takeover of Page, AZ in the mid '80s, AMERICAN RICKSHAW was produced during a time when Italian exploitation guys were a regular presence in Florida, particularly the Miami area, where Martino shot the boxing drama THE OPPONENT a year earlier. Gaylord stars as college kid Scott Edwards, studying engineering while working part-time at American Rickshaw, a rickshaw service that's big in the tourist areas and popular night spots. One night, his fare, a sultry stripper named Joanna (Victoria Prouty in her simultaneous debut and farewell from cinema) seduces him on a boat, where he discovers a perv hiding in the closet has videotaped the encounter. An enraged Scott beats the shit out of the perv--cutting his own foot on some broken glass in the process--and makes off with the videotape, but discovers when he gets home that it's the wrong one. He goes back to the boat to find the perv drowned in the toilet, and his blood, his fingerprints, and a missing sex tape putting him right there at the murder scene.
A fire ignites and destroys the boat, but the tape is in the possession of ruthless assassin Francis (FALCON CREST's Daniel Greene, who starred in several Martino films starting with 1986's HANDS OF STEEL). He's looking for a key that was on a necklace worn by the dead perv, who's revealed to be Jason Mortom (Gregg Todd Davis), the black sheep son of frothing, fire-and-brimstone megachurch televangelist Rev. Samuel Mortom (Donald Pleasence, chewing on a really hammy Southern accent). It seems--and yes, this gets complicated--Jason and Scott were born on the same day--June 6, 1966 in the Year of the Tiger, according to the Chinese calendar (note: 1966 is not a Year of the Tiger, but 1962 and 1976 are; 1966 is a Year of the Horse, so the movie doesn't even get it right)--and for their entire lives, they've been "linked" and watched over psychically from afar by elderly Chinese mystic Madame Luna (Michi Kobi). She was once in possession of a glowing talisman that holds the key to immortality, and it was stolen from her years ago by the evil Rev. Mortom, in actuality a cult leader who has assigned disciple Francis to retrieve it after Jason stashes it in a train station locker as part of an extortion plot against his father.
By the time one of the cops investigating Jason's death conveniently turns out to be a secret expert in Chinese folklore ("They were born on the same day! 6/6/1966 is the day of four sixes! The high point of the Year of the Tiger, the day of maximum power!" he breathlessly exclaims to his unimpressed partner) and characters start babbling about "celestial spheres," "The Stone of Evil," and "The Urn of Wisdom," things start to seem less like the Van Damme knockoff that the AMERICAN TIGER box art was selling and more like the lyrical outline to an abandoned Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe concept album. This sets up a string of events--including Scott threatening Joanna with a needle and warning "You scream, I swear to God I'm gonna stick you with this thing. I found it in the gutter, I'm sure you're familiar with AIDS!" and one of the greatest dummy deaths I've ever seen--culminating in a jawdropper of a climax that's equal parts VIDEODROME and SPIRITED AWAY, and certainly belongs in the Donald Pleasence career highlight reel.
Pleasence probably only worked on this for a day or two (he was in nine movies in 1989, including another one for Martino, CASABLANCA EXPRESS), but he really immerses himself in his Southern drawl ("Aah shale keel yuuuuuu!"). Unlike most Italian productions of the time, AMERICAN RICKSHAW was shot with live sound aside from a couple of bit players who sound revoiced by veteran dubber Nick Alexander. There are no Italians in the cast, with the supporting roles filled by regional actors from the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas (Davis was also in THE OPPONENT and Umberto Lenzi's Miami-lensed NIGHTMARE BEACH around the same time, and Judy Clayton, as Rev. Mortom's wife, later had small roles in Florida-shot titles like COP AND A HALF, ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE, and BULLY). Mitch Gaylord's place as an Olympic hero is secure, but his big-screen aspirations never panned out. After AMERICAN RICKSHAW, he landed roles in two post-BASIC INSTINCT unrated DTV erotic thrillers--1992's ANIMAL INSTINCTS and 1994's SEXUAL OUTLAWS--and served as Chris O'Donnell's stunt double in BATMAN FOREVER. Aside from a one-off return with a supporting role in the 2005 indie comedy CONFESSIONS OF AN ACTION STAR, his acting career appears to be on permanent hold, though he remained active in the sports world, covering gymnastics for NBC Sports and Fox Sports, and found some success as a fitness guru and motivational speaker. It's doubtful AMERICAN RICKSHAW ever came up in his presentations. It needs to.
WHITE FIRE (Turkey/UK/France - 1984; US release 1985) Directed by Jean-Marie Pallardy. Written by Edward John Francis. Cast: Robert Ginty, Fred Williamson, Belinda Mayne, Jess Hahn, Mirella Banti, Diana Goodman, Gordon Mitchell, Benito Stefanelli, Jean-Marie Pallardy. (Unrated, 102 mins) You know you're in for something special when you're watching a Turkish co-production and an establishing shot caption can't even spell "Istanbul" correctly. I must've looked at the box for the 1984 actioner WHITE FIRE a thousand times at the video store back in the day and never pulled the trigger on renting it. It's just been released on Blu-ray by Arrow (because physical media is dead) and in these unprecedented times of great uncertainty, it actually warms my heart to discover a small miracle like WHITE FIRE exists and to realize that there are still some movies out there that have the ability to leave me awestruck with wonder, mouth agape, asking questions like "What the fuck is this?" "Am I imagining this movie, because it can't possibly be happening, can it?" and "Was this made by human beings from planet Earth?" Also, for reasons that will become clear, any mention of "White Fire" in any capacity will henceforth be immediately followed with a italicized "White Fi-yaaa!" You can make a drinking game out of how many times someone in WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) declares "White Fire," and instantly follows it with an exclamatory "White Fire!" ("Look! It's White Fire. White Fire!"). And the same thing happens in the chorus of the insanely catchy earworm of a theme song by NWOBHM-turned-AOR band Limelight that plays approximately 650 times over the course of WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!).
Directed by French soft-and-hardcore porn vet Jean-Marie Pallardy, WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) has a plot that defies all logic, plausibility, and reality, but here goes: Boris, aka "Bo" (THE EXTERMINATOR's Robert Ginty) and Ingrid (KRULL's Belinda Mayne, daughter of cult actor Ferdy Mayne) are siblings who were orphaned as children and taken in by Sam (a profusely sweating Jess Hahn as George Kennedy). Cut to 20 years later in "Istambul" where Ingrid is employed by a high-tech diamond mine that looks like the repurposed set of a Turkish STAR WARS ripoff, complete with security personnel in full SPACEBALLS/Dark Helmet head gear and attire. Her boss (Gordon Mitchell) and the staff all wear weird red jumpsuits like staffers in a Bond villain's secret underground lair. Bo and Ingrid have remained inseparable into adulthood, and still live with Sam and his wife, but they also have a side gig: Ingrid has been secretly stealing diamonds from the mine and fencing them with Bo and Sam. The siblings are abducted by Italian criminals Sophia (TENEBRE's Mirella Banti) and Barbossa (Benito Stefanelli, looking like Terry Gilliam's stunt double), who know what they're up to and want a piece of the action. Around the same time, a mine employee informs the boss that they've excavated the legendary "White Fire" (White Fi-yaaa!), a massive, radioactive, million-year-old diamond with magical powers long thought to be a myth. Word of White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!) gets out and Sophia and Barbossa want Ingrid to obtain it for them. The siblings refuse to play along, and Ingrid is killed during an attempted kidnapping. A devastated Bo goes to a bar to drown his sorrows and he meets Olga (Diana Goodman), a near dead-ringer for Ingrid. Sam is the man with a plan: pay Olga $50,000 to undergo plastic surgery to turn her into Ingrid, convince her boss that reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated, and get her back in the mine to steal White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!). Another benefit: Bo is falling for Olga and it would be super-cool for him if she looked exactly like Ingrid, because he really, really wanted to bang his sister.
Oh yeah, Bo's got it bad for Ingrid. It's not every day that you see a vaguely futuristic diamond heist movie filled with catchy AOR jams, bad guys in crazy future-onesies with security dressed like Darth Vader, Robert Ginty picking up a random chainsaw on a loading dock and slicing through a bunch of goons PIECES-style, the villains graphically bisecting some unlucky putz with a band saw, the mine having an easily accessible torture chamber (!) for staffers caught making off with merchandise, and a female plastic surgeon who operates out of an exotic fortress filled with stunningly beautiful women like some Sapphic Playboy Mansion, with all of it blanketed in an overt incest fetish with VERTIGO undertones. Look no further than the bizarre and downright creepy scene where Bo watches a skinny-dipping Ingrid and they can't take their eyes off one another as Bo flirtatiously plays keep-away with a completely nude Ingrid's towel ("You know, it's a pity you're my sister," purrs a bedroom-eyed, feathered-haired Ginty). Then Fred Williamson (who had just co-starred with Ginty in the Italian ROAD WARRIOR knockoff WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD) shows up about an hour in as Noah, a hired gun pimp/mercenary leading a team of Borat cosplayers searching for the missing Olga, who's apparently the AWOL mistress of his powerful boss. All get involved in the search and all parties eventually converge as the plot to steal White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!) intensifies. That is, when Bo and Olga/New Ingrid (played post-surgery by Mayne) aren't too busy fucking.
WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) really has to be seen to believed. It wastes no time establishing itself as a jaw-dropper of the highest order less than five minutes in, with one of the most reckless and shockingly irresponsible stunts ever captured on film. During the prologue, we see Bo and Ingrid's parents murdered, and her father is hit with a flamethrower, which completely engulfs the unprotected stuntman in flames from head to toe--his hair briefly ablaze--as he does a stop, drop & roll to put out the fire. The sight of this is incredible enough to make even an '80s Indonesian action director have an anxiety attack, but what takes it to next level insanity is that it wasn't a stuntman--it was Pallardy himself, playing their father and doing the stunt on his own, making WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) very likely the only film where a director lets himself be set on fire on camera to capture the perfect shot.
The behind-the-scenes personnel involved is just as bugfuck insane. In addition to Pallardy venturing outside his erotica comfort zone (except for the whole sister-screwing subplot), WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) had a weird combination of financial backing from some unexpected places. A Turkish-British-French co-production, it was executive produced by Sedat Akdemir and Ugor Terzioglu, the Turkish team who briefly dabbled in the Italian exploitation industry with a pair of Antonio Margheriti projects (1983's YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE and 1984's THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD). Also involved were John L. Coletta and Alan G. Rainer, who had ties to Deep Purple's inner circle when they produced 1977's THE BUTTERFLY BALL, a concert film of Purple bassist Roger Glover's 1974 rock opera The Grasshopper's Feast and the Butterfly Ball. Furthering that association was WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!)'s soundtrack being overseen by legendary Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord, who composed the score and produced the songs by Limelight (in addition to the "White Fire" (White Fi-yaaa!) title track, there's the love ballad "One Day at a Time," the unintended anthem for incestuous siblings everywhere). To no one's surprise, WHITE FIRE (WHITE FI-YAAA!) skipped US theaters, getting a straight-to-video release courtesy of Trans-World Entertainment in 1985, its artwork and tag line ("EXTERMINATION is the reward for the world's richest prize") making an unmistakable reference to Ginty's EXTERMINATOR fame, though the jury's still out on whether his character's idea of the world's richest prize is White Fire (White Fi-yaaa!) or finally finding a way to bone his sister without everyone thinking he's a creep.
YETI: THE GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY (Italy - 1977)
Directed by Frank Kramer (Gianfranco Parolini). Written by Marcello Coscia, Gianfranco Parolini and Mario Di Nardo. Cast: Phoenix Grant (Antonella Interlenghi), Jim Sullivan (Matteo Zoffoli), Tony Kendall, Mimmo Crao, Eddy Fay (Edoardo Faieta), John Stacy, Steve Elliot (Stelio Candelli), Loris Bazoky (Loris Bazzocchi), Donald O'Brien, Al Canti, Francesco D'Adda, Giuseppe Mattei, Claudio Zucchet, Stefano Cedrati, The American Collie Indio. (Unrated, 101 mins) Dino De Laurentiis' blockbuster 1976 remake of KING KONG got trashed by critics but was a big hit with audiences, so of course the ripoffs were inevitable. Two were even quickly rushed into production when it was announced: the 3-D South Korean A*P*E (starring a pre-GROWING PAINS Joanna Kerns), which beat KING KONG into US theaters by two months, and the British-West German spoof QUEEN KONG cut it much closer, hitting European theaters a week before KING KONG's Christmas 1976 premiere (it was never released theatrically in the States). The Hong Kong THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN was in Asian theaters in the summer of 1977 and would eventually be released in the US in 1980 as GOLIATHON, then languishing in obscurity until its 1999 resurrection on the midnight movie circuit courtesy of Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Pictures. America's lowly Monarch Releasing Corporation dusted off a 1968 Italian jungle horror adventure called KONG ISLAND--a Dick Randall production with peplum star Brad Harris as a mercenary vs. Marc Lawrence as a mad scientist doing mind control experiments on gorillas that had nothing to do with a giant ape--and shamelessly dumped it in drive-ins in 1978 like a flaming bag of dog shit at someone's doorstep as KING OF KONG ISLAND. Surprisingly, the usually savvy ripoff masters in the Italian exploitation industry were a little slow in their response, taking an entire year to release YETI: THE GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
Partly shot in Toronto, giving it a slight era-appropriate Canadian tax-shelter vibe (where's George Touliatos?), YETI found journeyman director Gianfranco Parolini--using his usual "Frank Kramer" pseudonym--on a career downturn. Parolini enjoyed some success in the 1960s with his KOMMISSAR X series of 007 knockoffs, and later with his 1969-1971 SABATA spaghetti western trilogy (the first and third with Lee Van Cleef, the second with Yul Brynner). Parolini was coming off of 1976's GOD'S GUN, an Italian-Israeli spaghetti western with Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Richard Boone, Sybil Danning, and teen idol Leif Garrett. It was both an early Golan-Globus production and one of the worst spaghetti westerns ever made, and certainly the worst with actors of that caliber. Parolini's slump continued with the laughably cheap KING KONG cash-in YETI, which never even scored a US theatrical release, sitting unclaimed for seven years before becoming an early acquisition of a Miramax Films that was still finding its niche. They sold it to syndicated TV in 1984, where YETI's generally family-friendly nature made it a semi-regular presence on Saturday afternoon Creature Features. It eventually found some status as a bad movie favorite after it was broadcast on a 1985 installment of Elvira's "Movie Macabre." A public domain fixture in the era of clearance-bin DVD sets, YETI: THE GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY wouldn't seem to be a film anyone was clamoring for in pristine HD clarity, but nevertheless, here we are: it's just been released on a bare bones Blu-ray from Code Red/Dark Force, because physical media is dead.
When a giant, million-year-old creature is found frozen in a block of ice off the coast of Newfoundland, billionaire Toronto industrial magnate H.H. Hunnicut (Edoardo Faieta, billed as "Eddy Fay") sends scientist Prof. Wasserman (John Stacy) to head an excavation team supervised by Hunnicut hatchet man Cliff Chandler (Tony Kendall,the star of the KOMMISSAR X films). Also tagging along are Hunnicut's orphaned grandchildren, Jane (Antonella Interlenghi, billed as "Phoenix Grant") and younger, mute Herbie (Matteo Zoffoli, billed as "Jim Sullivan"), the latter a science enthusiast who, as Jane explains in some clumsily-conveyed dubbed exposition, "lost his voice in the plane crash in which my father and mother died." Once thawed, the creature is revealed to be a Yeti (Mimmo Crao, mostly on his own against a not-100% functioning bluescreen), and it begins showing signs of life with a weak heartbeat. It regains strength and goes on a rampage at the excavation site before being calmed by the presence of Herbie, his dog Indio (played by a collie credited as "The American Collie Indio"), and especially Jane, for whom he develops a classic King Kong/Fay Wray attraction. Against Wasserman's wishes, Hunnicut decides to make the Yeti the trademark logo of all of his businesses, which leads to improbably huge, Yeti-crazed crowds at his gas stations and his supermarkets, where customers line up with a Beatlemania-like fervor for a creepy "Kiss Me Yeti" promotion. Speaking of creepy, look out for Chandler, played by a 41-year-old Kendall, trying to get all up in Jane's business, which would be inappropriate for a family-aimed adventure even if future CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD co-star Interlenghi wasn't just 16 when this was made.
The fantastical elements aside, YETI doesn't exist in any kind of logical reality. Even a cigar-sucking CEO as buffoonishly stupid as Hunnicut would see the danger of staging the Yeti's public introduction to a packed crowd of spectators on the top of a downtown Toronto skyscraper, which goes about as well as you'd expect when the media advances on the terrified creature and starts taking photos with huge flash bulbs going off. Granted, it's an odd twist that the Yeti climbs down the skyscraper instead of up, but then he's loose in the city and somehow sneaking up on people as if he's not anywhere between 30 and 500 ft. tall. Thanks to its cheapness and subpar special effects, the Yeti's size changes drastically from scene to scene before Jane and Herbie lure him to Toronto's Exhibition Stadium (where earlier, Parolini gives us some extended footage of a Blue Jays game during the team's 1977 inaugural season), and later to a warehouse, where Wasserman gives the weakened creature some oxygen via an unusually large nasal cannula that he must've had lying around for just such an occasion. For reasons that are never quite clear, Chandler and two goons (Stelio Candelli, Loris Bazzochi) decide to kill Wasserman and make it look like the Yeti did it, but Herbie and Indio overhear them talking about it, prompting Indio to go full Lassie, running off to bark a warning to Jane. The Yeti once again gets loose and goes after Chandler and his stooges en route to a showdown with the cops, led by future DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D. madman Donald O'Brien, who goes through the finale with an incredulous look on his face that says "Hold on a second...wasn't I in John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN and GRAND PRIX?"
YETI really deserves to be better-known among bad movie aficionados. Whether its the ridiculous, nonsensical plot machinations; the inability to decide if it wants to be a kiddie movie or an exploitation grinder (Chandler tries to sexually assault Jane at one point during a Yeti rampage, and even his guys are like "What are you doing?!"); the way Herbie is dressed as if young Zoffoli (later seen as a young Sicilian boy in THE BIG RED ONE) got lost on his way to a junior high production of Little Lord Fauntleroy; the way Chandler's getaway car peels out of a downtown Toronto parking lot, and after one turn and a single cut, is immediately on a seaside mountain road, presumably somewhere in Italy; and the peculiarly catchy title jam that's definitely a "Goofy Italian Theme Song" Hall of Famer with its almost "funky OMEN" sound, YETI's idiotic joys are endless. Best of all are the chintzy Yeti bluescreen work and the embarrassing miniatures, with Parolini focusing so much on a cheap toy helicopter that you'd think he was proud of it (don't miss Crao tightly grasping an oversized plastic doll when the Yeti is supposed to be holding Herbie). Cinematographer Sandro Mancori is also credited with "Blue back," and he had a lengthy career as a never-exemplary but certainly competent D.P., with several credits for directors like Parolini, Antonio Margheriti, and Enzo G. Castellari, that one must assume he was doing the best he could here under the circumstances. This is a corner-cutting production, and the only conclusion you can really draw is that most of the budget probably went to hotel and airfare getting the Italian cast and crew to Canada and back. After a busy career going back to the 1950s, Parolini took a decade off after YETI, sitting out almost all of the coming Italian exploitation trends (no zombies, no post-nukes, no CONAN ripoffs) before making a one-off return with the little-seen 1987 Philippines-shot Indiana Jones ripoff THE SECRET OF THE INCAS' EMPIRE, starring Italian action D-lister "Conrad Nichols" (real name Bruno Minnetti). Parolini died in 2018 at the age of 93. YETI didn't advance the acting career of Mimmo Crao, who has zero IMDb credits after his stellar work in the title role here. Interestingly, he also had his most high-profile gig the same year, appearing as the apostle Thaddeus in Franco Zeffirelli's hugely popular 1977 NBC miniseries JESUS OF NAZARETH.
