I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale
Sergio Martino was born into the movie business. He's the grandson of Italian sound film pioneer, Gennaro Righelli. His brother, Luciano, was also a producer and director. One of Martino's earliest gigs was an assistant director role on Bava's "The Whip and the Body." He would work in various roles in the industry until making his directorial debut in the late sixties. Since then, Martino worked in the genres you probably expect: Spaghetti westerns, poliziotteschi, sex comedies, post-apocalyptic action, and horror. Yet Martino is best known for a stretch of gialli he made from 1970 to 1973, each of them regarded as classics to one degree or another. He would cap that run off with "Torso" – Italian title: "The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence" – which is probably his most beloved film.
British art student Jane has come to the Italian city of Perugia to study the classics. At the same time, the city is terrorized by a masked murderer. A man is strangling women with red-and-black scarves before violating and dismembering the bodies. After thinking she might have a clue to the killer's identity, Jane gets a threatening phone call. She decides to hide out in her uncle's country villa with several of her girlfriends until the man is captured. This backfires when the killer comes to the villa's door while Jane is bed-ridden with a twisted ankle.
Now, there's two ways to look at "Torso's" constant nudity. Either this is simply an exploitation movie, made by pervs determined to give audiences looking for cheap thrills their money's worth. Or the film actually has some deeper ideas on its mind. In art class, the characters talk about observing painting, talking about the bodies on display. This sets up a leering atmosphere, concerned with observing. Throughout the film, men are caught spying on women, such as in a notable scene where guys gather around and oogle a friend of Jane's. Among the characters are a stalker and a Peeping Tom. Unsurprisingly, misogyny is revealed as the killer's motivation, as he unfurls a torrent of sexist insults when confronting the final girl. He says all women are just dolls, objects to be looked at and broken apart. I have no doubt that all the flesh on display is for largely puerile reasons. Yet "Torso" does seem to have some deeper thoughts about how women are viewed and commodified by a sexist society.
More than its style and execution, the giallo is distinguished from slashers by its detective element. "Torso" has a typically convoluted plot, parading a collection of red herrings for us to speculate about. Adding to the theme of voyeurism, most of these men are creepers too. There's the street vendor who stares up a woman's skirt, the mute pervert, an uncle who stares through a crack in the door, and the impotent stalker who beats up a hooker. These guys mostly exist to up the body count, their scenes feeling like digressions. Otherwise, Jane has to put together half-remembered clues to identify the potential killer. The murderer actually comes to her, so I guess she's not a very good detective. The story feels secondary in "Torso," its usually undefined cast members bumping into each other on the way to the gruesome moments and the big reveal.
The original “Pumpkinhead” introduced such a great monster, that horror fans the world over always felt like it should've been a franchise. The premise, of a demon called upon to deliver vengeance, is mutable enough to support countless stories. The first film certainly hinted at a long history for the character. It seems, for a long time, fans just had the original, a direct-to-video sequel, and a short-lived comic book to satisfy their curiosity. At least that was the case until someone someone decided to try capitalizing on this I.P. again in the mid-2000s. Two new “Pumpkinhead” movies would be filmed back-to-back in Bulgaria in 2006, debuting first on the Sci-Fi Channel ahead of a DVD release. The first of these was “Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes.”
Foregoing the “Blood Wings” approach, “Ashes to Ashes” is a direct sequel to the original “Pumpkinhead.” Dr. Fraser is a crooked mortician, who is harvesting bodies and selling their organs. After the operation is uncovered, the outraged townsfolk want revenge for their loved ones that were so disrespected. This leads a quartet to seek out Haggis, the old witch who lives in the woods. She summons Pumpkinhead – reincarnated from Ed Harley's corpse – to punish the guilty parties. As always, vengeance carries a horrible price. When Dr. Fraser realizes the connection between the monster and the people who summoned it, he finds a way to escape retribution.
Whether Pumpkinhead looks cool and creepy is about fifty percent of the work, “Ashes to Ashes” has a few other elements in its favor. The gore is decent enough. There's a cool gag where Pumpkinhead impales a guy on a whether vane. Director Jake West, previously of “Evil Aliens,” engineers a decent set piece in a burning church. There's an admittedly impressive explosion later on. I admire the movie directly sequelizing the original, bringing back Bunt, Haggis the witch, and having Lance Henriksen reprises his role as Ed Harley. (As a ghost and the corpse the turns into Pumpkinhead.) There's also an attempt to update the original's southern setting to the modern day, as one of Fraser's crew is a young woman with a meth addiction. Even if she definitely does not look like a meth-head.
The lack of any characters we can relate to or root for means “Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes” never becomes truly involving. Watching the cast get cleaved through looses its entertainment quality quickly, with the last act being especially tedious. There's nothing compared to the tragic quality of the original film, meaning the downbeat ending just feels shitty. Considering this is a low budget sequel made thirty years after the original, that bypassed theaters for the Sci-Fi Channel, even being mediocre is better than expected. “Ashes to Ashes” has its heart in the right place but doesn't have the script or budget to back it up. [5/10]
I remember reading about “Dimension 404” when it was first announced, as a number of people I am a fan of where involved in the project. A tongue-in-cheek take on shows like “The Outer Limits,” made for the internet generation, the series would debut on Hulu in 2017. Like so many shows churned out as content for streaming services, “Dimension 404” would drop with little fanfare and disappear from the conversation immediately. Only a single season of six episodes would be produced and I'm pretty sure I'm the first person to talk about it in years. Yet the Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-Thon exist to uncover programs like this.
“Cinethrax” was the episode I was most curious about. The episode stars Patton Oswalt as Dusty, a middle-age movie nerd who shares a special bond with his teenage niece, Chloe. They regularly go to movies together. On their latest trip, she requests to see the latest entry in a Y.A. blockbuster series at a massive megaplex. The film is presented in Cinethrax, an immersive new 3-D format. Dusty wears glasses that flatten out 3-D, which allows him to see a strange tentacle like creature slither down off the screen and sucking people's minds out. It soon becomes apparent that Cinethrax is actually an extra-dimensional intelligence come to enslave the human race.
Luckily, “Cinethrax” is less bitchy and petty than it sounds. Oswalt is exceptionally good at embodying a kind of pathetic nerdiness. Dusty isn't a figure to look up to but to pity. He has a moment of self-reflection before the end. Sarah Hyland is also likable as Chloe, whose grievances with Dusty are understandable and treated seriously. Once the Cinethrax threat shows itself, this turns into a zombie movie of sorts. The degree of the infestation is revealed nicely. The brain-sucking tentacle – which makes this into something of a homage to “The Tingler” – is an effectively gooey effect. I'm not sure how I feel about the downbeat ending but I liked this well enough to want to check out more of “Dimension 404.” [7/10]
Before the debut of "The Muppet Show," Jim Henson and his team would present their puppet antics on various variety shows. And sometimes these performances could get kind of freaky. "The Organized Mind," also known as "Limbo," would be performed on a 1966 episode of "The Mike Douglas Show." It follows a squiggly face — three puppets of eyes and a mouth — discussing how he's organized his mind. He takes us on a trip through his brain, showing how he's filed away various emotions and life experiences. Yet when he gets to the section devoted to his fears, things start to spiral out of control.
For a guy who would become best known for wacky family entertainment, Jim Henson's early work could have a definite eerie quality. The abstract image of a human face, winking and grimacing, plays over footage representing whatever the titular character is discussing. As he talks about his "evil" thoughts, images of violence and lust appear behind him. Once we get to the fears, the film gets increasingly creepy. Close-ups of bugs, Boschian hell scape, and a skull-like face appear. (Actually another, ghoulish puppet called the Nightmare.)
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