The late
1970’s-early 1980’s was a golden era in Italian horror cinema as directors such
as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Ruggero Deodato were setting box offices on
fire with the most famous/infamous movies of their careers. At the same time,
producer Gabriele Crisanti, noting the success of his fellow countryman, sensed
an opportunity and jumped on the bandwagon.
Along with a small stable of regular collaborators, Crisanti quickly
churned out almost a dozen low-grade potboilers which gave the target audience
exactly what they wanted – blood, boobs and bush in spades. His works from the
period – MALABIMBA, GIALLO IN VENICE, PATRICK STILL LIVES, BURIAL GROUND and
SATAN’S BABY DOLL – all share a number of common factors. Plots take a back
seat in favour of cheaply executed but bloody and graphic jack-in-the-box gore
scenes, gratuitous sex and nudity (often
juxtaposed with sexually violent deaths), and an all-round grimy, sleazy
atmosphere. The characters are often unlikable bickering oddballs who are
hacked up off one by one – set to occasionally recycled locations and music.
Crisanti’s productions are also notorious for going where even seasoned genre
practitioners wouldn’t go – incest, female masturbation and genital violence
are all filmed in lingering close-ups.
Now for a closer look at Crisanti and his key collaborators Mario Landi
and Mariangela Giordano.
Gabriele
Crisanti began his career as a production designer before turning to producing
in the late 1960’s. Always astute of the marketability of his product, Crisanti
rapidly turned out film after film of whatever what was in vogue with audiences
at the time, hoping to Xerox the profit of the trend’s pioneer titles. Beginning the 1970’s with decameroticons,
he then veered to erotic comedies in the mid 70’s, before winding up the decade
by venturing into the horror market.
Crisanti’s first
production in this field was an exorcism/nunsploitation cash-in, MALABIMBA
(1979), the sordid tale of an innocent young girl becoming possessed by evil
spirits after a séance gone wrong and embarking on a sex-fuelled rampage, with
her father, uncle and the family nun amongst her depraved targets. Crisanti’s
girlfriend at the time, Mariangela Giordano, played the role of the nun, and
subsequently went on to act in all of Crisanti’s horror projects.
An elegant looking but uninhibited actress with
classic Mediterranean features, Mariangela Giordano participated in some of the most unforgettably
shocking scenes in Eurohorror history throughout her filmography with Crisanti
(a poker entering her vagina in close-up and exiting via her mouth in Patrick
Still Lives; her nipple being bitten off by her zombified, incestuous son in
Burial Ground, to name just a few...) Unlike other Italian exploitation
starlets, Giordano was a capable actress, often injecting a wide range of
expressions and emotions into one-dimensional characters initially solely
written in as eye candy and/or cannon fodder. Her obvious dedication to her
craft and willingness to appear in such extreme scenes has a simple reason –
because of her devotion to Crisanti. “Looking back, I shouldn’t have done them.
But I was in love with Gabriele. I would have done anything for him. Now I can
see how the increasingly gruesome ways in which he had me killed in them was a
reflection of the breakdown of our relationship. PATRICK STILL LIVES is the
worst instance of how shocked I was in retrospect by something I’d done on
film. That poker scene is so disgusting, so terrible, only Gabriele could have
sweet talked me into actually doing it! It took two days to film that scene,
and because the poker had to keep thrusting between my legs before it came out
the top of my head, it got more and more painful as we kept going. And it was
cold and freezing. I don’t know why Gabriele always insisted on making these
movies during winter.”
Giordano was
also not exempt from a ultra-gruesome demise in Crisanti’s next venture, GIALLO
IN VENICE (1979), a grubby, brutal giallo choosing to up the ante on explicit
sex and violence rather then the stylish flourishes that usually punctuate the
genre. The plot involves the murder of a young couple, a subsequent
investigation uncovering the kinky sex-and-drug fuelled lifestyle of the pair,
and a killer on a bloody rampage, thus providing the filmmaker to pack in its
91 minutes masturbation, buggery, voyeurism, prostitution, rape, whipping,
double rape...and Giordano the victim of the most sadistic killing – having her
leg messily sawed off after being tied nude to a kitchen table.
GIALLO IN
VENICE was directed by Mario Landi, a former television director who had filmed
a number of successful dramas for that medium in the 1960’s. Keen to return to
feature filmmaking (he had helmed a couple of low-budget melodramas in the
early 1950’s), Landi approached Gabriele Crisanti with treatments of GIALLO and
his next effort, PATRICK STILL LIVES (1980). Recognising that the projects had
moneymaking potential and could easily be shot in his quick, economical trademark
style, Crisanti signed on Landi, who’s functional, workmanlike static direction
is all too obviously much more suited to a TV studio; this is painfully obvious
in the endless unprepossessing close-up shots of the title character’s
zombie-like face (and flaring nostrils) in PATRICK STILL LIVES.
PATRICK STILL
LIVES, an unauthorised ‘sequel’ to the much more sedate genre sleeper PATRICK
(1978), bears little resemblance to its predecessor. Aside from the title and
the titular character possessing psychic powers, any similarities end there. Using
their tried and tested formula, Landi and Crisanti instead chose to push the
exploitative angle to the limit and tack the threadbare plot together with
bloody creative kills and extraneous nudity. A blink and you’ll miss it
pre-credit sequence shows Patrick and his father, Dr.Herschell, waiting for
help on a roadside as their car has broken down. A liquor bottle thrown from a
passing vehicle hits Patrick in the head, resulting in him being left in a
permanently bedridden, comatose state. Three years later, Dr.Herschell, the
head of “Herschell Wellness Resort” invites a handful of seemingly random
people to stay there as all-expenses paid guests – a politician and his wife, a
prostitute and her drug-dealing pimp, and an athlete. It soon transpires that
the doctor is hell-bent on getting revenge on whoever was responsible for
ruining his son’s life, and he has narrowed down the list of suspects to the
group he’s invited to his retreat (not exactly the most sympathetic bunch –
they spend much of their time bitching, griping and slapping each other
around). In addition, Dr.Herschell has been cultivating Patrick’s psychic
abilities to assist with his murderous vengeance. Patrick’s brain has been
wired to those of a trio of hardened criminals, and the criminals’ evil ‘energies’
are sent through to Patrick. The doctor commands Patrick use these energies to
kill off each guest one by one – everything from boiling water to decapitating
car windows to crotch-grawing German Shepards comes into play here. And as
mentioned earlier, a highlight/lowlight is the long suffering Mariangela Giordano
having a self-levitating poker rammed up a certain orifice – a scene which was
not in the original script. Gabiele Crisanti included it after a particularly
bad argument with Giordano to teach her a lesson apparently (!!!) However
Patrick has something other than murder on his mind when tended to by his
father’s stunning assistant Lydia, He wills her to strip, hump a bedpost and
masturbate (in a lengthy and graphic sequence). The film concludes abruptly
(i.e. Landi and co CBF’ed including a proper ending) with Patrick suffering a
crisis of conscience as to his actions as he is in love with Lydia, and after
more murder and mayhem, Patrick and Lydia are the sole survivors, presumably to
live happily ever after. Yes, PATRICK STILL LIVES is as stupid and ridiculous
as it sounds – and the oft-repeated 1950’s standard effect of Patrick’s bulging
eyes superimposed on the screen as a “warning” of impending danger and corny
theremin ‘sci-fi’- sounding music just add to the ludicrousness, but if you’re
in the mood for ultra sleazy, ultra cheesy fun, you can’t go wrong.
Crisanti’s
next production is his most well-known – BURIAL GROUND (1981). Quick to catch
on the massive success of zombie films at the time such as DAWN OF THE DEAD and
ZOMBIE, Crisanti wasted no time in securing another low-budget sleazemeister,
Andrea Bianchi. Via utilising the
apocalyptic nihilism of the zombie genre and blending it in with their own
misanthropic, perverse filmmaking universe, the pair created a derivative but
watchably strange undead saga. Professor Ayres discovers an ancient Etruscan
tomb beneath his sprawling villa and in doing so, unleashes a horde of rotten,
worm-infested and bloodthirsty zombies who immediately chow down on the
professor. Meanwhile, three couples arrive at the villa who have been invited
as Professor Ayres’ guests so he could show them the tomb. However they have no
idea of his demise and settle in, awaiting his arrival. One of the couples,
George and Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano), have brought their son Michael (the
legendary Peter Bark) with them. Michael is not only extremely odd in
appearance (the character is meant to be about 12 years old but looks like a
40-year old dwarf with a bad toupee) but also in manner – he has a very
disturbing Oedipedial fixation towards his mother, spying on her during sex and
trying to feel her up all which culminates in...I’ll save this for later. The
main characters frolic around the villa, completely oblivious that the living
dead are creeping up all around them. Before long though the guests discover
the reason for Professor Ayres’ ‘disappearance’ and are having to have to fend
off the zombies, who, interestingly enough, have the ability to operate power
tools, throw knives, and use battering rams to bash through doors. One by one
the guests are zombified, entrails are ripped out and consumed and the body
count piles up – until we get to THAT notorious scene which I guarantee will
stay burned in your mind forever.
Featuring guess who? You’re right, poor Mariangela Giordano. Evelyn, one
of the last survivors, is thrilled to see Michael is still apparently alive. In
her delirium she fails to see he is well and truly a zombie, and when she sees
him eyeing her breasts she has no qualms about offering him one to suckle “Just
like when you were a baby...” But Evelyn’s ecstasy quickly turns to agony when
Michael chops down on her tit, ripping the whole thing off (hmm the aftermath
of another Crisanti/Giordano row perhaps?) While on paper BURIAL GROUND would
sound like a unimaginative pointless, by-the-numbers zombie quickie, Crisanti’s
team have worked their dubious ‘magic’ yet again.
The
combination of truly rancid-looking, wormy zombies, the incest subplot, and
buckets of queasy gore create a unforgettably fetid atmosphere with an
effective sense of doom from the beginning, even managing to override the
typically atrocious dubbing, sub-porno standard acting (with the exception of
Giordano), and – again – the absolute minimum in terms of plot and
characterisation).
For his final
genre effort SATAN’S BABY DOLL (1982), Crisanti decided to remake his earlier
production MALABIMBA, hiring XXX director Mario Bianchi (no relation to Andrea
Bianchi) this time around. It’s clearly obvious by this time Cristiani had
tired of the horror genre by not even bothering to imitate the latest
box-office smash, but instead commissioning a uninspired reboot of a not
particularly classic film released only three years previously. Bianchi himself
isn’t particularly proud of the film, citing a miniscule budget as the main hindrance:
“When Crisanti, the producer, called me I was enthusiastic. I never had done
anything like it. But, as I said, the problem was that we were working on a
very low budget. In Rome we call them ‘pizza e fichi’. We had very little time
to do the shooting. You judge the results for yourself. The budget was so small
that it was impossible for Crisanti to lose money on the film.”
In an ancient
castle owned by the Aguilar family, young Miria Aguliar, the virginal 16 year
old daughter of Antonio, a violent, jealous bully and the late, promiscuous
Maria, is possessed by the restless spirit of her recently deceased mother
(who’s body is kept in the castle’s crypt). Other residents of the castle are
Antonio’s mute, voyeuristic wheelchair-bound brother Ignazio, Sol (Mariangelo
Giordano) a comely nun who also acts as Ignazio’s caretaker (and the object of
his voyeurism), and Isidoro, a strange manservant who regularly conducts black
magic rituals in the basement. Maria’s death was caused by Antonio murdering
her in a jealous rage after discovering Maria had been sleeping around with
most of the castle’s occupants including Sol (cue pondering lesbian sex scene
flashback). Maria also dabbled in Satanism when she was alive, and has the ability
to channel her vengeful spirit into her daughter in order to eliminate those
who were both directly or indirectly involved in her death. Under her mother’s
evil command, Miria goes about seducing and killing all those around her.
Probably
the least memorable title in Crisanti’s filmography, SATAN’S BABY DOLL is
somewhat dull and plodding, pretty much a uninvolving supernatural soap opera,
but it has enough sick/weird touches and decaying, morbid Gothic atmosphere to
keep the viewer watching for its brief 73 minute running time. The usual
Crisanti trademarks of odd, dysfunctional characters and incest themes still
works to some extent. And for those inclined, there’s the usual extraneous
female nudity and masturbation scenes. Last but not least is the killer
psychedelic rock score by Nico Catanese (surprisingly his sole composing
credit).
Though often
poorly acted and executed, with style, characterisation and logic conveniently
bypassed, the genre films of Gabriele Crisanti and his collaborators never pretend
to be anything that they aren’t -
derivative trash – but at least Crisanti and co have gone out of their way to
ensure that their output was entertaining
derivative trash, with a shock factor that still packs a punch today. Unashamedly
outrageous and audacious, utilising a simple formula (‘So THE EXORCIST and DAWN
OF THE DEAD had blood and gore in them? Well we can do better that that – we’ll
put ten times the amount of blood and gore in. And put in lots of hot naked
women too!’), combined with typically Italianesque gothic settings and music,
these films have their own unique appeal. Depending on the viewer’s
sensibilities they’ll either love or hate the films. Best watched with a six
pack, a willingness to forgive massive plot holes and NO politically correct
expectations whatsoever!
