The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) "La ragazza che sapeva troppo" and released in the US as "The Evil Eye", is a Mario Bava film that is not quite a giallo but is definitely a nice mystery thriller. If the film was more serious it would more easily be considered a giallo but there is some light hearted more humorous scenes that move it away from that genre. It has some cautionary messages in it about drugs and reading murder mystery books that were a bit contrive. The film opens with the main character flying to Italy to stay with a family friend. Nora Davis (Leticia Roman) is just twenty years old and off to have her time abroad. She is a reader of murder mystery books but has sworn them off on the trip. The gimmick here is that our girl is about to take part in a murder mystery. Here love and knowledge of the books will be an asset as she weaves her way into the story. The second gimmick has to do with the gentleman sitting next to her. Trying to pick her up he offers her a cigarette and then his whole pack. It is amazing in the present to think that lighting up on an airplane was once very common place. The point of this entire interaction is somewhat strange until we see the two in line at customs. Four men come up to the man and arrest him. In his suitcase is what looks to be packets of cocaine and cigarette packs they say are laced with marijuana. It creates the opportunity for a quite tense scene. Nora standing next to him remembers that he gave her a pack of smokes. What is she going to do? She could be caught with illegal drugs in a foreign country. She smoothly lowers the pack and lets it fall to the floor. But as she moves away a cop picks the cigarettes up for her and returns them to her. This scene is then cut here, Why? There could be a very tense will she get through customs scenario but it seems it was all so at the end of the film she can question whether she was high and lost her sense of reality? Very flimsy if you ask me but here it is in 1963 and marijuana is being used as a prop in a film.
  The murder mystery comes pretty quickly we meet Mrs Windell (Chana Coubert) the old lady that Nora will be staying with. She is ill and being attended to by Dr. Marcello Bassi (John Saxon) who is worried about her heart. The old lady is reassuring to Nora saying she will get over her cold in a couple days and the two will have a wonderful time. Bassi on the other hand makes sure that Nora knows where the old lady's medication is and directions to the hospital he will be at. This is an ominous beginning and the storm outside confirms this. In the night Nora is called by distressed pleas by Mrs. Windell and she rushes in her attract black nightgown to her side. Panicking a bit she prepares the woman's medicine but unfortunately is too late. Mrs. Windell is dead and Nora is a nervous wreck. She throws her raincoat on and rushes out to get the doctor at the hospital. What were those directions again? Down the steps of the Trinita Dei Monti and turn right. On her way though her night goes from bad to worse.
  As she heads down the stairs of the famous church she is spied by a mugger who jumps out and pulls her purse from her. In the process her pushes her so that she falls and hits her head. Unconscious with blood in her hair she does not wake until she hears the scream. Dizzy and half awake she sees a woman stumble from the side of the stairs, she is in pain and falls, a knife in her back. A man follows her out into the light and Nora sees his face. He does not see her though, being more interesting in retrieving the victim. Nora passes out again as the rains start up again more strongly, washing away the blood and any trace that a murder had taken place. A man finds Nora in the morning and she is still very groggy. He feeds her some alcohol from a flask but then a cop starts up the stairs scaring the man away. Now the cop find Nora but smelling her breath thinks she must have fallen down drunk. This is why we don't let our daughters run around the globe on there own. When Nora wakes again she is in the hospital being treated as an alcoholic.
  This is the start of the murder mystery. No one believes her about seeing a murder. There is no evidence of one since the rain washed it away. The poor girl attends the funeral of her benefactor and probably would have gone home if not for what seems a chance meeting with Mrs Torrani (Valentina Cortese). Laura Craven Torrani is a socialite living in the apartment near where Nora saw the murder. She is very engaging with the girl and offers to let her stay in the apartment while she travels to Germany to be with her husband (Giovanni Di Benedetto). Was that a chance meeting, the photo on the piano of Mr. Torrani says not. He is the same man Nora saw drag the murder victim away, but she never sees the photo as it was removed by Laura before she left. So the setting is in place for the solving of the crime. The audience knows more than the protagonist and can sense she is in danger.
  Not to give the whole plot away since this is a film you should see, but it is Nora sifting through the clues like a detective in one of her murder mystery navels who finally will find the answers. While doing so there is the love interest of Dr. Bassi to help her on the way and in the end protect her. The serial killer aspect much like a murder mystery novel involves a killer who has been killing in alphabetical order, Gina Abbot, Maria Beccati, Emily Craven all have died over the years in a similar way. Now it is up to Nora davis to end the killing without becoming the next victim. All the while we see that she is being followed and watched by a man whose face we never see. Designed to make us believe that it is Mr. Torrani and add tension to the story. When Nora finally figures ouut the mystery the direct calls back the beginning of the film.
  Marcello and Nora are together looking over the sights of Italy talking about marriage. She reaches in her bag for a cigarette and remembers they are the same smokes given to her by the drug dealer. Could she have been smoking pot through the entire film? She wonders if this is the case and everything that happened was a pot induced dream. Hilarious. So it is a solid film with decent acting and a good twist. A bit dated but with lovely on location scenes in Rome. I definitely recommend this one for people who like murder mysteries.
Rating (6.7) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others.

Black Christmas (1974) Horror Christmas

Black Christmas (1974) - What is this, a horror movie where you never see the killer? That is the unique approach taken by Black Christmas. There are a lot of shadows, and flashes of eye balls or hands plus a lot of point of view (POV) of the killer but he/she is never revealed. It seem that the killer is male but it is never revealed.  How the film pulls this off is... well it really doesn't pull it off, the lack of closure leaves the viewer feeling a bit cheated if you ask me. Also leaving you cheated is the incredible but true fact that there is absolutely no back story for the killer. I watched the extra features and director Bob Clark did think they were doing something unique, well it is unique but I am not sure it really works. Roy Moore wrote the screenplay and barely worked again after that and I think you can see why.
 I don't recall this film as a child, I would have been 11 when it came out but since we were too poor to attend the movies, I probably missed most things. Nothing, the film opens with the POV of the killer showing up at the sorority house and climbing a trellis to get in an attic window. I guess the killer has randomly chosen this house as the next place to stalk. Later we learn there has been a killing in town and that currently a thirteen year old girl is missing. Still this does nothing to establish anything other than our voyeuristic fascination as the killer moves around the house spying on the occupants. It is a tough sell, the killer when he chatters sounds crazy as shit and you would think there is a story there. Sometimes on the phone there seems to be more than one voice, one male and one female but without a reveal that just stays a mystery
Inside a gathering at the sorority house with girls and their guys hanging out having a good time. We establish characters, Jess (Olivia Hussey) who is having troubles with her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea), he is not at the party because he has a concert for his professors at the music conservatory. Its a lot of stress and we see with a phone call she has with him that there is something not right between them that she won't reveal on the phone. Clare (Lynne Griffin) and Chris (Art Hindle) are a couple, and she wonders what her parents will think of him. Barb (Margot Kidder) is a bit of a college alcoholic, loud and boisterous she can be the life of the party of the reason it breaks up. There are a couple of particularly nasty bits she does that show the flaws of her character, early in the film she and all the rest of the girls have gathered around the phone because the prank caller has called. Someone mentions that a couple weeks ago a local girl was raped in the area, and Barb says "Come, on everyone knows you can't rape a local. " This comment really directed at poor Clare who is an actual local attending the college. It is very mean spirited alcohol aided vitriol.  Phyl (Andrea Martin) is there also and the house mother Mrs Mac (Marian Waldman), a woman whose drinking problems have progressed to the point she has bottles hidden all over the house. The other thing we establish at the party is that there has been a prank caller repeatedly calling the house. This is interesting because since it ends up being the killer and has been going on for a while we know the killer has targeted the house well before the events in the film happen.
  The film plays out at a leisurely pace although the first kill happens rather quickly. Clare is up in her room packing and hears sounds in her closet. Thinking that Chris may be playing tricks on her or one of the other girls she creeps over asking "Is anybody there?" as she closes in on the closet we get a POV of the killer as he/she wraps Clare's head in plastic and suffocates her. Then we see the shadow of the killer as Clare's body is taken up into the attic and placed in a rocking chair in the single attic window, head covered in plastic dead. We come back to this image again and again in the film. In fact anyone paying attention outside would see poor Clare when they looked up at that window, but off course nobody does.
  Things get bumped up a notch when Clare's father comes to take her home but she is not at the meeting place. Clare is now noticed to be missing the girls in the house head to the local police station to see if they can get some help. While there they learn that there is a missing 13 year old girl in town. I think the introduction of the police is that they are bungling small time group and by the end of the film you really get to see how poor they are at doing their jobs. They do get involved with the sorority house though and do their best to solve the disappearance they really are inept.
  The primary story line between Jess and Peter is that she is pregnant right at the time that he is preparing for his performance. Since it is 1974 the choices Jess have are discussed on screen with her initially not wanting to tell Peter and just going to have an abortion. She decides he should know though and his immediate response is that they should forgo the lives and dreams they have had up to this point and get married. Jess is not in that particular headset and is more inclined to have an abortion. She does not want to trade her life hopes and dreams because of an accident with a man she does not want to marry. I thought the scenes where they discuss the issue are emotional and honest with realistic reactions and conversation. The topic of how sexual miscalculations put at risk all of the plans of those involved and the dilemma when one person may not want the marriage solution society implies in those situations. Besides being a stage for a discussion between a woman's right to choose and the inherent distaste for the procedure it was a way to make Peter seem angry. So when suspects are being bantered about by the police his name had to come up. The audience can wonder about him but never seriously, the characters in the film though definitely see him with skeptical eyes. They also have the poor guy get this news right before his big performance which he has been practicing for night and day. The added pressure sure did not help as he blows his big moment. Trashing the piano so that the police see he is a loose cannon does not make him seem any less suspicious to the police.
  As the killer gets more victims it is Jess who ends up in the house for the climax. A phone tap makes it so the police can call and tell her the call is coming from the other phone in the house. Things get crazy from there with the classic finding of the friends dead. Jess is our final girl and the police arrive well after the action is over. Of course the audience also does not really see all the action which is a real disappointment. The police headed by Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) and the ending are truly dreadful, it would seem they have no procedures at all in their department. The film ends with them leaving the house and then us hearing the killer chattering about upstairs. They did not even search the house! I know they thought that the killer was already taken care of but since two people are still missing wouldn't you still search the place top to bottom. I guess those bodies up in the attic are going to have to start stinking before they are found.
  Over all I was a very disappointed with this film. In most of the movies so far, even the bad ones there is some kind of back story about why the killer is the killer. What are his motivations and usually it has something to do with Santa fucking someone, or a relative being killed on Christmas. Here though nothing, just a psychopath engaged in a killing spree. No one knows why and it seems no one cares either. There was nothing wrong with the characters reactions to the situation and the film overall was not poorly constructed. It just was missing the killer story, not to mention the killer is never really seen. There is the strangeness of the phone voices sometimes sounding male and sometimes female but it just is not enough to keep the tension. The acting is fine if a bit cartoonish at times. Mrs Mac in particular is more of a caricature then a character. Don't get me wrong there is something here, Hussey was great as Jesse and Kidder plays mean drunk really well. Over all though I could have skipped this film and been alright with that, it is really middle of the road horror.
Rating (4.7) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others.

Trapped Ashes (2006) - Horror

Trapped Ashes (2006) - A tour guide (Henry Gibson) picks up his motley crew of VIP guests for a tour of the old movie studio. As they drive around on what seems a lame tour, they come to the set house for the movie "Hysteria". The group convinces the guide they should go in and see the house. When inside they split up but each end up in a room with no apparent way out. The guide suggests that the follow the script from the movie and each tell their scariest story. So we have the film premise as each couple or single person shares a scary story. It seemed like a long setup and poorly constructed. Really you are going to tell stories to get out of the room? Okay so even if it is part of the tour isn't it a lot to go through?
Well then the stories start with "The Girl with the Golden Breasts" in which Phoebe (Rachel Veltri) tells a tale of her breast implants. Suddenly this little film is a lot like the show, The Hunger without the overbearing host. She tells her tale of how her alien breast implants need to feed on blood. Horrifying in that it ruins breasts forever, well at least until the image of the carnivorous boobies fades from memory.
In "Stanley's Girlfriend" The Great John Saxon tells of a girlfriend gone wrong. Nathalie (Michele-Barbara Pelletier) tells the story of her father and stepmother and how they died, as well as her relationship with her "Twin". Not the most impressive of the tales. and in Jibuku there is sex and scares and damnation. All of these tales wrapped up with the start and finish in the scary house.
Overall the tales are a bit hard on the women involved. They are alien deformities, cheating wives, murderous children, and life sucking witches, with the men in their lives as hopeful heroes or in most cases hapless victims. The stories are not really sexy enough to be erotica or scary enough to be horror, instead it is a mish-mash of both.
Rating (4.8) 5.0 and up are recommended In the Zombiegrrlz Rating system I would say Maybe rent it.