Horror Show: Blaxploitation Video

A small overview of a few of my favorite horror Blaxploitation films of the 70s. This episode is packed with silliness and swearing! Times below.

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music: DARK STEP by Silent Partner - YouTube Audio Library

 

They Have Changed Their Face (1971)

Unlike most of my posts, this review overview 
WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

This is a very interesting, statement of a film that I had to give a little love to. They Have Changed Their Face has some horror elements, but it's really a statement about advertising of all things. It's an odd one. Director Corrado (Baba Yaga) Farina and his writing partner on the film Giulio Berruti deliver up a very interesting fairytale about the vampiric advertising industry and the consumerism it tries to send into a frenzy.

We have an odd business scene opening things up here where Alberto Valle is told that the owner of the company - Giovanni Nosferatu...yes....Nosferatu - wants to see him in his mountain villa right away. As Valle travels into the mountains and fog, things start to get strange. The locals don't speak to him and the rustic buildings seem to be falling into a horrid state. He meets a woman named Laura and she joins him for part of the journey. When they arrive at the villa, she says she'll wait for him and makes one more attempt to get him to come away with her instead of dealing with this business situation. He declines and makes his way into the villa.

I'm trying not to go detail by detail here, but there are so many fun details! :)

We see that guards travel around in little, European cars and find out later that there are eight of these cars in total. Cars are used to cover the massive grounds. Odd, but...it kinda makes sense. Valle meets Corrina, Nosferatu's striking, willowy secretary who has a haunting appearance. Ghostly almost. She says that Nosferatu will meet him for dinner and that he never leave his office during the day. When he finally meets Nosferatu (played by the awesome Adolfo Celi of THUNDERBALL fame) he's a bit taken aback when Nosferatu tells him he wants Valle to be the new CEO of the company.

Now, this is where I was expecting a ham-fisted vampire story. But....NOPE! It's anything but standard. Here's where things get very spoiler. The film takes it on that the vampire has switched from stalking prey in the dark of night to seeking out more consumer prey in the light of day. They are entwined in everything. Politics so that they can change laws around the things they sell...like LSD. They have religious representation now. And, they run advertising and consumer products like a well oiled machine. Sucking the money from consumers...and blood from time to time. They also groom people from birth to be various positions within the company.  Valle even finds a photo of himself as a baby in a large tome and sees that he's been called out as future CEO since the beginning of his life. Very deep and trippy.

Valle is repulsed by Nosferatu and his mob and vows to take him down however he can. He shoots Nosferatu many times and escapes the vampire, his secretary, and his car guards.

That is until he finds Laura and sees that Nosferatu has gotten to her - sucking her blood and changing her from groovy, topless, hippy roamer to up and coming secretary with a desire to settle down and have a family.

At that, Valle gives in and let's Corrina escort him back to the villa...where he sees that Nosferatu is alive and well and ready to shake the hand of his new CEO.



The movie kinda hit me. It's a big, dreamy metaphor of course, but it's well done and highly entertaining. You also only really have a cast of four and the interplay is very engaging.

I love Adolfo Celi as Nosferatu. He's always a grand, mafia-like character that's fun to watch. He was great in EYE IN THE LABYRINTH as well. A great character actor.  Giuliano Esperati's Valle was pretty great as well. Really real and playing the "man in a strange land" role believably and realistically. Francesca Modigliani was riveting even though she wasn't around much in her Laura role. She had these fantastic, large eyes that were mesmerizing. Sadly, she's only done this and one other film - The Sin in 1972.



The most curious character here for me was Geraldine Hooper as Corinna. She's birdlike and ghostly with a skinny frame and strange, almost alien face. I was confused because she actually played a man in Dario Argento's DEEP RED. Though, now that I write that, I'm not 100% sure of anything anymore. hehehe . She's striking and unusual and fun to watch on the screen. She has a haunting nature and plays sweet as well as she plays sinister.




So...that was long winded, but only because I found the film to be so very interesting. It's really not "horror" honestly, but it has a undertone of the horrific and gothic that I loved. If you'd like to take a gothic journey into the 1970s world of "FIGHT THE MAN!" filmmaking, you'll want to check out THEY HAVE CHANGED THEIR FACE.

J&B SIGHITINGS:    1

A Virgin Among the Living Dead

There's gourmet chocolate. It's refined and delicious. It melts in your mouth bursting with wondrous flavor combinations and sensations. Think SUSPIRIA or BLOOD AND BLACK LACE or DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING.

Then there's A Virgin Among the Living Dead - the M&Ms brand of chocolate that's not magical or expensive, but still tastes pretty darn good and makes you happy.

A young woman's relative is ill, so she pays a visit to her estranged family at their villa in the country to see her before she passes away. She makes it just in time to say her goodbye and gets a sinister warning. "Run. Run far away!"

It took me a while, but I'm a big Jess Franco fan now. I kinda get him. He loved horror. He loved women. He loved film making. He just went up to 11 on everything. Nude women romping through horrific situations as his wild camera followed them kinetically. They are so much fun. And this "Old Dark House" style film delivers all of the above and more as the mystery unfolds. And of course, Jess is right in there as one of the family members, so that's fun too.


And the film as some fantastic, Franco dialogue as well as his wild storyline and convenient situations.

"Poor soul! Beyond words! You must get away from here. You'll fry in your own hell, believe me. Ask me no questions, just get away from here."

"Run! Get out of the valley! Can you see everything here is dead?! Get out of here!"
"Come on. You're not going to believe a crazy old man."



"Come and try it. There's nothing like the taste of blood. Try it. Try it, Christina. hahahahahahah" 

It's a warm blanket of a film that delivers up some crazy characters, giggles, lot and lots and lots of camera zooms, and....yeah...a lot of nudity.  The film does have a great, shadow filled look to it that makes me happy. Everything is lit by candles and dim, but then you'll enter a room and it's bright as day in the middle of the night! heheheh  I love it.

Seventies horror lovers need to check this one out for sure. I don't know what else to say here. Is it a good movie? Well, it's very entertaining and fun, so I'd say yes. But, it's not good in that "good" way. It's good in a "what the hell am I watching here?!" sort of way that I love. You watch things unfold and giggle as you mutter little quips and jokes as the film plays on. I dare you to give this a go!

I think I might have to snag a Franco box set. His films are so strange and interesting.

All the Colors of the Dark (1972 aka Tutti i Colori del Buio)

And we're into another Sergio Martino classic with All the Colors of the Dark starring the :::heavy sigh and swoon:::  wondrous Edwige Fenech. So lovely. Those eyes. :::sigh:::   AHEM! Uh....

A CLASSIC....that's where I was. :)

Edwige plays Jane Harrison who has lost her unborn child after a car accident. She is having SUPER strange nightmares and is really slipping into a state of depression and madness. Her husband pushes her meds on her, but her sister Barbara (the awesome Nieves Navarro) wants her to try some less medicinal ways of dealing with her loss by talking to a Dr. and leaving the pills behind. But, who is the mysterious man (Ivan Rassimov) that is following her around town...and peeking at her? Is her neighbor really trying to be her friend...or is she involved in some other way herself?




We have a lot of Martino goodness in here as well. Handheld, kinetic camera movements and dramatic shots with great lighting make this a great giallo sampling, though it's not one to start with if you're new to the genre. It's pace and sometimes confused storyline may turn off those that are not obsessed with gialli.





This film is wacky for sure, but it has some fun moments. And...you know...I'll stare at Edwige on the screen no matter what she's up to! heheheh.  The film runs off the tracks a few times, but manages to stay on course for a fun and diabolical ending.

Well worth a viddy!

The Visitor (1979)

What the HELL did I just watch?1 heheheh 

Mel Ferrer...Glenn Ford...Lance Henriksen...and the super adorable Joanne Nail...all in this weird little science fiction film that looks like the lovechild of THE FURY and THE BAD SEED.  This super creepy film (creepy because of all the inappropriate and strange child scenes) tells the tale of a bad space eight year old who's inherently evil. Luckily, Mel Ferrer is on the case, making sure the creepy eight year old and the evil folks on her side don't get poor Joanne Nail pregnant with a little brother for her.

The movie just keeps bringing on the bonkers.

Surprise gun gift madness. 




SHELLY fucking WINTERS cast as the "magical negro housekeeper" (it's a thing, look it up) role and inept bodyguard - providing wisdom during the...maybe one day she was on set shooting.  hehehehe 





Ice skating battles. 

A pigtailed 8ish year old kid delivering lines like, "Do you want to know where it is? UP YOUR ASS!"

The most bald people assembled for a film since THX1138. 

High aspiration green screen shots that are...magical. 

Secret Evil Businessmen around a large table...making evil plans.

A score fit for....maybe the 1972 Olympic Games opening ceremony throughout. 

Funhouse mirrors?

A LOT of bird attacks.

AND....Franco Nero as Jesus Christ. Yes...Jesus. 

Just...strange. Good old Italian strange. And long feeling. At an hour forty-eight minutes, it feels more like 2.5 hours or so.

However, I was all in on the film. It has enough in it to make it interesting. And they manage to make some things happen in the film that look kinda cool. Like this silver mirror effect on ole creepy kid's eyes when she's....alien-ing out.

This is a must see for fans of strange, Italian films. It's all in there and packs enough entertaining oddness in to keep you going. If you're a pot smoker, you might want to plan on being REALLY high when you watch this. I'm a whiskey man, myself, but I don't know if any amount of whiskey could get me spinning enough for this film to make sense. hehehehe

Check it!

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail

I'm returning to Sergio Martino for more tales of corruption, betrayal, and murder - The Case of the Scorpion's Tail. It's turning out that I'm really digging Martino's films overall. He's becoming a go-to director for me. With films like Torso, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and Blade of the Ripper, he's rapidly becoming one of my fave giallo directors.  Here, he brings us another police procedural style giallo and I thought it worked rather well.

A woman finds out that her cheating and now deceased husband had a rather large insurance policy on her to the tune of a million dollars. But, his mistress knows this as well. And so begins the series of events that have us going round and round wondering "who dunnit?" in this epic little tale. I really don't want to say a whole lot more here. There are mystery elements that I don't want to spoil.

We have many of the standard gialli tropes represented and you know that I love counting them up! hehehe We have the classic killer in black, a man and woman duo trying to investigate a crime they've been sucked into, a hard boiled police detective who...for some reason...is willing to work with the duo on the case, many twists and turns, tons of characters floating in and out of the story, and lots of J&B whiskey flowing. heh

The film is well shot and the pace is constantly moving along. The locations are exotic and fun as well. Spain, Greece, Italy - always wondrous to see. The dialog is snappy and things make sense for the most part. It really is a tight little mystery and it's fun to follow the actions as they play out.  There are murders in here, but nothing as brutal as the likes of Torso, so if you are wanting more detecting and less vicious stabbing, you're safe here. However, there are some rather nasty moments as well, so everyone should be happy one way or another. :::grin:::

We see some of our familiar gialli faces as well. George Hilton from "The Case of the Bloody Iris"and the awesome Anita Strindberg and Luigi Pistilli from "Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key". Sadly, no Edwige Fenech. :::sigh:::  It turns out Hilton is still working. I'd like to check out some of his more recent films.

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail is super solid and well worth a viddy.

The Fox with the Velvet Tail

The Fox with the Velvet Tail aka  In the Eye of the Hurricane was another film I went into blind. I love doing that because it really is a wonderful surprise to watch things play out. I really enjoyed this film. The overall look and feel was interesting and beautiful and the story itself was very interesting. There were so many little twists and turns that I stayed engaged through the whole of it. The actors were a lot of fun to watch as well. Beautiful men and women doing awful things to each other. heheheh   NOTE: Little to no gore.

If you like romantic mysteries and complex relationship based storylines, you're going to want to check this film out for sure.

Now, this film review needs to be a little spoilery, so if you don't want to know anything more about it, move along. Move along. :)

Still with me? Good.



Ruth and Michel (or Miguel, evidently, depending on the translation) are going through rough times. Ruth wants a divorce and Michel wants to try and hang on, but Ruth wants nothing more to do with him. In fact, she already has a new man - Paul. She decides to get away and Ruth and Paul escape to her seaside villa. Everything is wondrous. Kissing, making love, and exotic gifts abound. Then, things start going wrong, putting Ruth in harms way more than once. Ruth suspects her ex, especially after he appears at their door one night. Paul invites him in and things start to get even more complicated. And, who's that lovely woman who is hanging around the villa? And who is the man that Paul knows from his army days who seems to be a crack shot with an interesting past?






At first, I thought this was going to be a rather run-of-the-mill "if I can't have her, no one will!" kind of plot, but it's SO much more than that. Things just keep getting more and more complex and cruel as the film rolls along. Analía Gadé Ruth character seems rather lost and Jean Sorel plays the perfect Prince Charming. As characters were woven in and out of the story, I became more and more interested in exactly what was going on. I love the way things kept shifting and changing all the way through to the film's final credits.

This is a fantastic little romance mystery that is a must watch. Especially to see the fantastic 1970's eye camera zooms! :)  Check it out!

Night Train Murders

NOTE: CONTAINS SPOILERS


I picked up the KILLER THRILLERS COLLECTION a while back to get a copy of STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER - a favorite of mine. I figured I get the film I want and two others I have not seen before. Maybe I'd like them. I love STRIP NUDE, though the title is still cringe-worthy. :)

Baba Yaga was a ton of fun as well, so I was way up on my purchase.

Then...I watched NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS and HATED it. I thought it to be mean spirited and cruel. Yes, I understood that it, too, was based on the Ingmar Bergman classic The Virgin Spring like Last House on the Left (also mean spirited), but I had not stomach for it and just wanted it to end.


Later I posted this on the DARK DISCUSSIONS PODCAST PAGE (a great podcast, by the way!) and one of the leaders basically said that he loved it and thought that I would as well. I thought I missed something - stuck on the violent aspects instead of the story, perhaps. I made note to return to it at some point in the future. Seeing as this is GIALLOctober at the Horror Show, it seemed like a good time to do a re-watch. And, I was pleasantly surprised.

The story is very "Virgin Spring". Two girls are heading home to visit and run into some bad folks. Very bad folks. Blackie and Curly are scoundrels. They are train hopping and avoiding the ticket master when they run into the girls and "The Lady on the train". The girls are friendly enough with them and the Lady is VERY friendly with them - having sex with Blackie in the lavatory in a heated rush.

The girls jump trains when a delay threatens to hold them back from their destination and the dastardly trio also hops trains.  Now, all five of them are in a train car in a rather deserted train and the girls lovely holiday dinner goes horribly wrong. They are raped and defiled and eventually - sadly - killed.

In Virgin Spring fashion, the evil trio ends up at the same house as one of the girls parents after the Father sees them at the train station as he's trying to pick up his daughter and her friend. After the parents figure out that these people have hurt their daughter,  revenge is dealt out by the Father and his shotgun. I found this to be very satisfying indeed. heh

Simple plot well executed. But, on this viewing I found several things that I found to be very interesting. Namely the Lady and her arc.

Now, the two men are very cartoon-like. We see them stealing from people and bashing things and scooting around trying to avoid paying for their train trip. Curly (with curly hair)  plays a harmonica and is a little creep while Blackie (with black hair) seems to have a BIT of a heart, but not much. But, the woman is a far deeper character. 



When we first see her, she's wearing a veil on her hat. A bag of hers falls and naughty, sadistic photos are hurriedly pushed back into her the case quickly. Then, at one point, she lifts her veil - maybe sometime around meeting the evil duo.  From that point on, she's as evil as the two men. She's mean and a full sadist with the two girls. She eggs on the men and even holds the girls for them at one point. She's loving the mean spirited games and is all in.

When they get to the girl's Family Home and things go sideways for the trio, she quickly says that she was also taken advantage of by the two men and that she tried to help, but couldn't. The parents assume that she must be telling the truth. I mean, another woman wouldn't do that to two college girls - right?

The men are dispatched and she stands there like a grim statue, then she lowers her veil again as if to tell the viewer, "I've had my fun and now it's time to replace the mask I wear in society."  I loved that aspect of the film. It was grand.

On the whole, I don't think I'll be returning to this as often as I return to Strip Nude for your Killer of Baby Yaga, but I don't hate it like I did on my first viewing. It's well worth a watch even if you only watch it once.

If you loved and return to Last House on the Left, you'll love this film. Check it.

What Have You Done To Solange?

"Not after what happened to Solange...."

What Have You Done To Solange? is a hard watch for sure, but it's a grand giallo and one that holds up over time. The subject matter is rough, so be warned. However, it's a fun mystery with some fantastic character development and beautiful cinematography with a haunting score by Ennio Morricone. 

Fabio Testi plays Enrico 'Henry' Rosseni - a teacher at a girls school. The dashing Rosseni is having an affair with one of the girls and is with her when she sees a knife flash in the woods. The gruff Rosseni is annoyed with Elizabeth (Cristina Galbó) for stopping their make out session over a silly delusion, however her vision of the knife proves to be a reality that Rosseni becomes helplessly involved in as the mystery unravels around him. 

We have another relationship playing out in the film in a similar way to WHO SAW HER DIE? as Rosseni's wife Herta comes to grips with the fact that her husband is cheating and pulling further and further way from her every day. And of course we have an inspector looking into the case. :)

The acting is top notch in the film and the pace keeps things moving along nicely. Relationships seem real and play out in very interesting ways as it becomes very obvious that there's something deeper going on at the school. 

Massimo Dallamano's Direction holds attention and his cinematographer background shows. Joe D'Amato is the cinematographer (and a CID officer in the movie!) and you can see where his style is starting to really come through in this, his 10th cinematography credit out of a WHOOPING 167! 

 

Like I said earlier, the graphic nature of the kills is pretty awful, but the way it's played out is extremely tasteful. Well, as tasteful as it can be. And the overall tone of the film isn't exploitative, which helps a lot. We get a mystery that's solid with people undergoing many changes as the film rolls on. There are some smart and subtle changes as well, like the character of Herta shown and tight hair bunned and cold in the beginning of the film and softening a bit as she and Henry start to work out their marital issues. 

Now, the film isn't perfect. We still have a few moments where you question why Inspector Barth is working with Rosseni so closely - especially since he's a suspect at one point. And there is a moment of exposition towards the end that was a tad sloppy to say the least. ("Let me explain exactly why the killer has done what they've done. Where's that PowerPoint I created a moment ago...." )  hehehe   However, the story is well worth some of the more minor quibbles and it's still one of my favorite mystery gialli and well worth a viddy!