Metempsyco (1965)

You don’t hear a lot about guinea pigs these days.  In the pantheon of house pets, they just don’t rank all that high, which is kind of a shame, because I think they’re pretty nifty.  They’re easy to take care of, they’re cute as buttons, and they’re fairly even-tempered.  My family had one back when I was young.  Her name was Petunia (get it?), and I used to push her around on my cheap, plastic skateboard (back when the activity was still called “sidewalk surfing”).  If I remember correctly, she only nibbled on my fingers a few times, but I didn’t mind.  People love their bunnies, their dogs and cats, even their regular pigs, but the guinea pig is all but forgotten these days.  Maybe they got a bad reputation for their ability to be mistaken for rats, as they do in Antonio Boccaci’s Metempsyco (aka Tomb of Torture).  That said, they just don’t bring the chills like you might think they would.

Anna Darnell (Annie Alberti) is dragged to her physician father’s village in order to keep her from going insane (this makes sense to someone somewhere).  The village’s dilapidated castle plays home to cranky dowager Countess Elizabeth (Flora Carosello) and the horridly disfigured Hugo, who enjoys torturing and murdering nubile young women in the dungeon/tomb that comes standard in places like this.  Anna just so happens to be the spitting image of Elizabeth’s sister, the missing Countess Irene (also Alberti), which deeply interests (kind of) Raman (Adriano Micantoni), the Countess’ former fiancé.  And things go from there.

The title Metempsyco is a shortening of “metempsychosis,” which is a fancy word for reincarnation, and for once in an Italian genre film of the time, it actually corresponds to the context of the narrative.  There’s the obvious mentioning of the resemblance between Irene and Anna by every character, but Boccaci also handles the duality of the character in a strong visual manner.  Irene appears as a mute specter frequently in mirrors that Anna peers into.  The countess is a presence looming over Anna, possessing her body, as well as an ominous harbinger of the physical danger Anna is in and a representation of the possible madness that imperils her mind.  Irene even appears a few times outside of reflective surfaces, so she becomes more physical than just a rumination on what’s inside Anna.  There’s even a dream sequence that’s both eerie in its disjointedness and telling as a flashback to Irene’s fate, and it directly draws a line between the two women, linking them on a spiritual level as something shared from life to life.  

As all cinematic ghosts are, Irene is the past sin on which the film’s plot turns.  We find out rather quickly exactly what happened to her (it’s pretty inventive), leaving only the mystery of who was involved in it (which is no real mystery at all) and how the film’s characters must deal with this.  Obviously, Irene can’t or won’t go away until her life and death have reached full closure.  Likewise, the deformed Hugo is the ugly, corporeal secret of this past that continues to harm the people of the village.  The past is, in fact, more important than anything happening in the present, because it informs every motivation of every character in the film (one could argue that this applies to all fiction, but I feel that it’s more pointedly true in Metempsyco and films like it).  Until this is dealt with, no one can move on.

Similarly, the castle and its inhabitants, in fact the whole village, simultaneously embody opulence and rot.  We’re shown this from the film’s start.  It opens with an establishing shot of the castle exterior, looking the worse for wear.  We then get a POV shot (heavy breathing included) of the castle’s interior, the finely woodworked doors, the various large busts, the bookcases, etcetera.  This cuts to a skull hanging in blackness, and the camera tracks in on a human eyeball in its socket.  It then switches back to the POV shot, and we now get a “rat” (one of the aforementioned guinea pigs) crawling on the fireplace’s mantle.  This bastion of finery is decayed, just as Irene’s corpse is.  It is beauty and ugliness combined.  In this same manner, you have the beast Hugo who captures, strips, tortures, and kills a couple of snooping girls (in a Psycho-esque prologue of some length).  In this village, beauty is threatened and must be destroyed.  Elizabeth, not an ugly woman, per se, is given a stern iciness which drains what comely attributes she may have once had, and her all-black ensemble only adds to her forbidding mien.  She may be wealthy, but she’s practically dead inside.  Anna’s arrival is a threat to the fetidness of the locale as well as being the reincarnation of Irene’s allure, so she is in turn threatened.  The castle is old affluence consumed by its greed and turned monstrous.

Lust and madness are also intertwined in the film.  Elizabeth’s lust turned to envy of Irene, driving her to madness and murder.  Anna struggles against some vague genetic insanity, but she beds down with gormless reporter George (Marco Mariani).  This does nothing to stave off her mental instability and seems to exacerbate it.  Raman lusts for Anna the same as he did Irene, driving him to act the stalker throughout the film.  And then there’s Hugo who is clearly psychopathic and indulges his cravings for female flesh in erotic murderous fantasies.

There are some surprises to be had in Metempsyco, primarily stemming from the lurid quality that informs its plot.  Death is brutally delivered by more than one character with shocking starkness.  There’s no actual skin on display, but both consensual sex and rape are presented as a matter of course.  Oddities are left unexplained or only partially explained, augmenting the nightmarish ambiance of the film.  Yes, the plot is as well-trodden as the cobbled streets of Pamplona and as enigmatic as a stapler, but it all works because of its macabre disarray.  This is pure pulp served up with a heightened gloom that makes it all the more nasty.  It’s a shame Boccaci didn’t direct another film (and only wrote a total of four), because he clearly had the sensibilities to be one of the more inventive and intriguing filmmakers of Italian genre cinema.  Plus, he was unafraid to try passing off guinea pigs as rats, and you have to admire that kind of moxie.

MVT:  The atmosphere of the film is infused with elderly gothic trappings and modern pulp perversity, blurring the two together admirably.

Make or Break:  The prologue showcases everything there is to love about the film.

Score:  6.75/10     

La Bambola Di Satana (1969)

Elizabeth (Erna Schurer) travels with her fiancée Jack (Roland Carey) to her uncle’s creepy old castle after the passing of the old man, but someone doesn’t want her to stick around for too long.

Ferrucio Casapinta’s La Bambola Di Satana (aka The Doll of Satan) is a gothic mystery in a quasi-giallo mold.  The castle provides an appropriately spooky setting, perhaps one of the most essential of all gothic elements.  Said castle has a dungeon with mannequins occupying its requisite torture devices (it was a “museum” according to sexpot governess Carol [Lucia Bomez], though it’s about as effective in that regard as the display cases at a carnival freak show, maybe less).  It has a ghost story running through it in classic Scooby Doo fashion (again, maybe less).  It has black-hooded malcontents skulking about and knocking off people.  Like many gothic fictions, the film relies on the mood created by the locale rather than anything generated by its story.  There is innate menace in the stones of medieval architecture, and the filmmakers try to capitalize on this.  

Since the story is not actually set in the past, our main characters are modern in dress and manner.  Jack doesn’t just have a car, he has a little two seat convertible (I couldn’t tell you the make and model).  Carol doesn’t care for these youngsters coming to the castle.  She believes that all young people want to do is get hopped up on goofballs and party (or something).  There is an intersection and conflict, then, between the present and the past at work to some degree in the film.  Carol represents the old, Elizabeth the new.  For example, there’s some discussion about wiring (maybe it was re-wiring) the castle, a suggestion at which Carol scoffs (please note, this is also about as interesting as most of the conversations in this film get).  Sir Balljanon (the uncle) lived in a castle but was doing research on Uranium.  There are scenes of the local teenaged fauna dancing to groovy pop music at the local café.  Contrarily, for as much as Carol puts on the air of a stuffy, Victorian governess, when the glasses come off and the teddy goes on, she becomes much less repressed (she’s also into some BDSM action).  It’s a commonly held belief that gothic stories are about repression and the desire that must boil up over it, and that’s certainly present here.

Interestingly, it’s the film’s representation of sex that stands out even more than any mystery or gothic elements.  As to the aforementioned teens (who have absolutely no bearing on the narrative, despite the length of time we dwell on them), the camera leers at the girls shaking their moneymakers in their tweed, knee-length skirts (in fact, it tilts down and holds on their lower halves).  Elizabeth’s friends, Gerard (Giorgio Gennari) and Blanche (who have absolutely no bearing on the narrative, despite the length of time we dwell on them; are you noticing a trend yet?), sleep together in one bed (we don’t know their marital status, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that they’re unmarried).  By contrast, and more importantly, Elizabeth and Jack not only sleep in separate rooms, but there’s also the intimation that Elizabeth is a virgin, and they’re saving it up for marriage.  Out of everyone in this film, these two are the most traditional (you could call them out of date) in their perspective on sex.  If anything, they are tied more closely to the creaky, old castle and what it represents than anyone else.  They belong at the castle, despite their trappings of modernity.  By that same token, Elizabeth is the only person who gets naked on screen multiple times.  It’s as if the filmmakers want us to lust for this woman specifically (actually, they want us to lust after all the women in the film [with the possible exception of Blanche], though the focus is on Elizabeth) because of her chastity.  It’s sort of a Madonna-whore complex going on, which is why Elizabeth is also the only character who has sex on screen.  That this is a hallucination/dream points back to the clash between old and new attitudes, as it symbolizes Elizabeth’s desire for sex in spite of her physical denial of it.  Because the audience is invited to watch for titillation indicates a subversion of her traditional outlook, a vicarious deflowering of Elizabeth, if you will, and a quasi-condemnation of archaic sexual mores.

So, let’s get down to brass tacks.  La Bambola Di Satana is lackluster in just about every way (or at least in all the ways that count).  The compositions are standard fare that even the castle’s interiors can’t quite manage to spruce up.  The score is unmemorable, as are the characters (Carol is the only one who generates any kind of interest, but that’s more for the straitlaced/sex kitten dichotomy she has going on, which is also sadly more teased than pleased).  The film brings up points and then completely forgets about them rather than capitalizing on them.  Chief among these is the inclusion of Jeanette, the sister who has gone insane and now spends her time taking up occupancy in Elizabeth’s old room and making faces at her dolly.  Even after Jeanette witnesses something fairly early on, it has no consequence on anything.  Mr. Shinton, Sir Balljanon’s research partner has papers that Elizabeth needs to see, but, to my recollection, that’s where the reference to them ends.  Even the subplot involving “starving artist” Claudine (Aurora Bautista), which should have had a huge impact on the story, just piffles along and comes to an undistinguished end.  The nail in the proverbial coffin, however, is the constant repetition of dull scenarios that stop the story dead and then bludgeon it a bit longer for good measure.  There are at least half a dozen scenes of characters eating (mostly at the castle, but sometimes at the café), so they can deliver dialogue that is neither expository nor revelatory (okay, sometimes there’s a little exposition, but not much).  Further, the multiple scenes of the teens dancing at the local hangout serve less than zero purpose.  I take that back.  They show us that there is a character hanging out eating in the background, and we know he must be important for two reasons.  One, none of the youngsters mean fuck all to the film.  Two, he’s always lounging in the background of the cafe while extraneous characters writhe about in the foreground, sucking up the viewer’s attention.  Needless to say, his part to play in this whole affair is yet another misfire in a film that unfortunately is more fizzle than steak.

MVT:  The castle is a decent setting for the film, but I’m just going to be honest and give it to Ms. Bomez.

Make or Break:  The first café dance scene dropkicks the film’s narrative right in the head.  The problem is, it takes a few moments for the viewer to realize how utterly useless this scene is in spite of the fact that there’s so much attention paid to it (and one girl in particular, who I expected to play some larger role; she did not).

Score:  5/10  

Bleeders (1997)

Incest has always been a go-to subject in the porn industry.  For a period of time in the Seventies and Eighties, it was acceptable and/or desired to watch family members bump uglies.  Entire movies were produced around the subject, and it played an integral plot point in some others (back when porn films actually attempted to have plots that they followed; and to be fair, some still do, but the vast array of what you’ll find out there on the internet is little more than loop scenes, the same as you would have found in a grotty porn theater booth way back when, just with [usually] better production values and a higher likelihood that you won’t stick to your chair afterward).  It’s still a theme in a lot of internet porn, except the producers are very, very careful to explain that incest is a crime in many states in America.  They further backstop this by concocting scenarios where the participants aren’t lineally related.  They are stepdads, stepdaughters, stepsons, stepmoms, et cetera.  Kind of takes the taboo elements out of the equation, doesn’t it?  In line with our focus today, incest is also an aspect of some potent horror films, and therein it doesn’t lose its bite, most likely because commonly there aren’t explicit, intrafamilial sex scenes that exploit that element.  In horror, incest takes on a sad, often abusive aspect, and when well done, it adds impact to the gut punch that horror films try to deliver.  With that said, the inbreeding component in Peter Svatek’s Bleeders (aka Hemoglobin aka The Descendant) does add to the film’s disturbing story, though the film feels like an amalgamation of older, Hammer-esque horror movies and more modern, graphic horror movies.

Back in Victorian times, Eva Van Daam takes up incest with her brother in an attempt to cure the maladies affecting her aristocratic family’s bloodline, like anemia and hemophilia, but bad things develop from this (who could have predicted that?).  Cut to: modern times, where John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) and wife Kathleen (Kristin Lehman) travel to the small island where the Van Daam family went into seclusion in search of answers to why John still has such horrible blood-based issues (I guess inbreeding didn’t do the trick).  Making the acquaintance of local physician/exile, Dr. Marlowe (Rutger Hauer), the couple dig deep into John’s lineage, while something else is digging deep into the flesh of the local populace.

As stated, Bleeders has a very classic structure to it.  There is little seen of the monsters until the end.  The majority of the story is a slow buildup of pieces being slid into place, of a mystery being dragged out into the light.  The focus is primarily on Kathleen and how she deals with her husband (who you would think would be the main character, but he’s not, and there is a significant reason for this) and his behavior.  Further, John is not a nice fellow, and physically he makes Richmond from The IT Crowd look like one of The Wiggles.  The action of the film is handled by Dr. Marlowe (in a redemptive/Van Helsing type of role), a man who is pulled into the story reluctantly.  I think this is a mistake, since it takes the focus off Kathleen, and it feels akin to the Amazing Larry suddenly becoming a prominent participant in the finale of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  

There is also a Gothic atmosphere that the filmmakers use to its fullest extent.  The locales are dreary.  The island is remote and haunting, like the forested settings of a great many vampire films.  The buildings the Strausses investigate are constructed of cobbled stone and creepy as hell.  The local cemetery looks like it was transplanted from a blasted heath in Britain, and the coffins supplied by local exploitress Byrde Gordon (Joanna Noyes) are the plainest of old school pine boxes imaginable (that the damage done to them gives them an added texture is just gravy).  In the Hammer films of yore (by which I do believe the makers of this film were heavily influenced), there was a sensuality, and, for their time, they were considered quite lurid.  This film mirrors the feel of (early) Hammer, but makes more straightforward the more unseemly components (somewhat like later Hammer).  Bleeders is also daring enough to not only put children in peril but actually knock them off (and not just once for the sake of shock), and once the third act kicks in, the action and tension ratchet up, becoming a siege film with cannibalistic horrors in place of savages.

It’s intriguing to me, this idea of developing from incest to cannibalism.  Both are taboo things in civilized society, but that one could lead to the other is kind of fascinating.  It is as if the Van Daams have cursed themselves for transgressing against the natural order, damning what they intended to save.  The bloodline they had hoped to purify has not only been further degraded but has also produced monsters.  Blood became the means of survival for them, though the blood they need can’t be pure (or that’s what I got from the narrative), because they are no longer pure (or as pure as they ever could have been).  In some respects, these creatures appear like children; their heads are large and bald, they are short-statured, they are non-verbal.  Yet they also externally embody the consumption of flesh (familial and non-familial, sexual and culinary) which created them: they have multiple noses, multiple eyes, and hare lips.  They are gestalts of the piling up of evils which engendered them and which they then propagate across the island.  What has been passed down the family tree is equal parts curse and punishment; transforming from one into the other while simultaneously being both is the ironic tragedy of the story.  All of this began in order to cure an ill, but the laws of both man and nature were broken in the attempt, and this is why the family in total is penalized.  Sure, the creatures may be unwilling participants (we can assume), but their alternatives are non-existent.  Surrounding them is a sort of fear of difference taken to a novel level.  Incest is certainly not the norm in most civilized communities, and its public exposure turns the islanders against the Van Daam clan, who they likely didn’t care for due to their wealth regardless (especially since we get the heavy implication that the Van Daam’s were both arrogant and uncaring, and this is carried on with John).  The islanders (working class) are different from the Strausses (moneyed) are different from the monsters (literally dirt poor), so that all of the inter-relationships create a circle, in addition to the one about social mores (heteronormative to incestuous to cannibalistic).  That there is some thought going on beneath the film’s surface is admirable, and the movie overall succeeds more than it fails.  Why it isn’t talked about more than it is confuses me, not because it reinvents the wheel or anything (it doesn’t), but because it’s better than its title and cover pic let on (its VHS cover was one of the great gimmicks of the medium, consisting of a layer of blood-colored liquid over a photo of the film’s beasties).

MVT:  I love the dark, grim tone of Bleeders.  It works for the subject and distinguishes itself from other horror films of the time (and even, arguably, today).

Make or Break:  There is a grave robbing scene which hits splendidly, even though you can see what’s coming a mile away.  It’s a very well-constructed, well-directed sequence.

Score:  6.5/10