Director: Joe D' Amato
Cast: Kieran Canter, Cinzia Monreale, Franca Stoppi, Sam Modesto
Frank Willer (Kieran Canter) lives in a large Italian villa left to him when his parents died in a car accident with only his wife, Anna (Cinzia Monreale,) and a housekeeper, Iris (Franca Stoppi). He also inherited enough money to live out the rest of his life, so he passes the time with his hobby, taxidermy. Early in the film young Anna dies of some prolonged illness, possibly due to witchcraft on Iris' part. At his wife's bedside, just before she dies, he reassures her, "Death has no power to separate us." Nonetheless, Frank is completely destroyed by this loss, his love for Ann having been the only thing worth living for in his otherwise sad and lonely life.
It's at this point that we begin to see the strange relationship between Frank and the housekeeper, Iris, who appears to be nearly twice his age. Back at the villa she comforts him. "So there's no one left to take care of you now. Only me, your little Iris. I'll always help you dear." She exposes a breast which Frank begins to suckle, as Iris calls him "Lil' Frank" and "my little baby boy".
The funeral is the next day. Before the ceremony, Frank enters the funeral home and injects his wife's corpse with an embalming liquid, because he still has plans for her. Unbeknownst to frank, the funeral director, Mr. Kale (Sam Modesto) witnessed the incident. The funeral takes place and Anna is interred, but Frank is back that very night to exhume his bride. He puts her in the back of the large van he uses to collect his taxidermy subjects and takes her home- but not without first enduring a flat tire, a brush with the police, and a hitchhiker who won't take no for answer. The hitcher is asleep in the van when Frank arrives home, so he leaves her there while he takes Anna into his basement taxidermy lab to work on her. He slices her open from the chest to the navel, removes the intestines and organs, and pumps her brain matter out through tubes inserted in her nostrils. He deposits the waste in an ordinary metal bucket. He is just finishing Anna's restoration, putting glass eyes in place in their sockets, when the hitcher wakes up and stumbles in. She sees Frank bent over Anna on the table and screams, then turns to run, upsetting the slop bucket in her haste. She does not escape, as Frank corners her and dispatches her with relative ease. Iris, no doubt having heard the struggle, has by this time arrived. She is not shocked or horrified by the charnel seen she has walked into. She helps Frank stow the hitcher, wrapped in a sheet, in the van, and together they move Anna to the master bedroom, place her on the bed, and dress her in a white night gown. Iris paints her fingernails red.
The next morning Frank is visited by a friend of his who helps him find clients for his taxidermy work. He has a client who he says will pay a lot of money for the baboon Frank has been working on recently. The client, however, is Mr. Kale, who remained in the car while Frank and his friend went into the house to talk. He takes this opportunity to slip into the garage and the basement lab and snoop around, but all he finds is a few small spots of blood and necklace Anna was wearing when she was buried- the hitcher's body has been moved from the van.
During the night, Iris had removed the body from the van, and now that they are alone again, it is time to dispose of it. Frank and Iris carry the corpse to the bathroom and Iris begins to dismember it with a large meat cleaver, while Frank is filling the bathtub with acid. After the corpse has been dissolved, the liquid remains are poured into bucks and buried in the back yard. Throughout this, Iris is calm and casual- Frank looks a little green. Frank becomes sick at dinner, and Iris taunts him cruelly. He takes refuge in the bedroom with Anna. But Iris takes pity on him, and again comforts him, but with a decidedly more "hands-on" approach this time, all the while cooing to him, "My Lil' Frank is better now. Good, clever Iris knows how to take care of him, doesn't she?"
It isn't long before another woman comes into Frank's life, a young woman jogger who twists her ankle on a lonely road near the villa. Frank takes her home and bandages her up, and the woman is obviously attracted to him. They move into the bedroom, where Anna's body still lies in the bed covered by the sheets. They begin to make love, but Frank cannot resist pulling the covers down so he can look at Anna. The jogger turns her head, sees Frank's dead wife and screams, and Frank is forced to kill her. Once again, Iris helps with the cleanup, only this time they use the industrial sized furnace in the basement to cremate the body. Iris tells Frank that they should also get rid of Anna's body because it is becoming too dangerous to have it in the house. Frank resists the idea, saying that he cannot part with her. He agrees to marry Iris and make her the mistress of the estate, but Anna must stay. Iris agrees, saying, "All right little boy, no one will touch your baby doll." A few days later two police come looking for the missing jogger, but they find no trace of foul play in the basement. Miraculously, they do not search the rest of the house.
Iris has her family over for dinner to celebrate the engagement, but Frank is sullen and withdrawn and barely makes an appearance. He instead locks himself in his bedroom with Anna and professes his undying love for her. This leads to a fight- Iris again tries to force Frank to get rid of the corpse, and Frank refuses. Frank calls Iris a "dirty old slut" and they come to blows. Their relationship is irreparably damaged (as well as Iris' already questionable sanity). Meanwhile, Mr. Kale has been keeping a very close eye on Frank and the villa. When Anna's younger sister, Elena (who looks exactly like her) pays a visit to see Frank, she becomes the catalyst which drives this gruesome love triangle to its inevitably violent conclusion
It is hard to say which half of this film is more grotesque- Anna's autopsy and the corpse disposal scenes, or the relationship between Frank and Iris. For those unaccustomed to gore, it may be the former. While all the murders in this film are violent and gory themselves, it is the aftermath which D'Amato focuses on most lovingly. The scene I refer to as the "autopsy", where Frank prepares his wife's body for keeping, is over four minutes long , and little attention to detail is spared as the organs and the brains are removed and dropped into the slop bucket. The disposal of the hitchhiker's body is an equally prolonged and graphic scene. Iris does the heavy work, chopping through the rather corpulent flesh of the arms and legs with the cleaver before tossing
the limbs in the tub. Each time the cleaver goes down, there is an audible and wholly unwholesome thud, and blood splatters Iris' face. After the remains are dissolved and buried in the yard, Iris serves up dinner- a thick, chunky beef stew.
In one of the most stomach turning scenes in the entire film, we are shown close-ups of Iris eating the stew, and her table manners are lacking, to say the least. The view is enough to send Frank vomiting from the room. On the other hand, Frank's relationship with Iris is also repulsive. It is not so much the age difference, but the bizarre Oedipal fetish they share, which is most disturbing. The scenes in which sexual acts are mixed with Iris' baby talk to Frank definitely make the skin crawl. These scenes are not especially graphic, which I consider a blessing.
From a critical standpoint, there are some flaws with this film. Franca Stoppi steals the show with her portrayal of Iris, the black widow. True to her maternal role, she takes charge when serious work needs to be done, and does not cringe like Frank does during the acid bath scene. Her character is pure evil from the beginning, where we see her placing a voodoo curse on Anna, to the end, where as the jilted lover she tries to stab to death both Frank and Anna's look-alike sister. However, Frank's character, portrayed by Kiernan Canter, was less consistent. He did not hesitate or look the slightest bit ill when working on Anna's corpse, in fact, he holds her heart in his hand and takes a bite out of it. He is equally efficient in murdering the two other victims, torturing the first one by pulling her nails out with a pair of pliers, and ripping out the throat of the second with his teeth. Yet he seems out of his element when it comes to destroying the evidence, relying on Iris, and even becomes ill at one point. This movie also kind of comes off the rails at the end, which is ambiguous and confusing. After the bloody end of Iris, we see Frank carry Elena off. The next scene shows the ubiquitous Mr. Kale enter the home and discover Frank near the incinerator. There is a body in the incinerator and one naked on the table, and it is unclear which is Anna and which is Elena. We are not shown what becomes of Frank, who is possibly mortally wounded. Mr. Kale leaves with the body on the table and takes it back to the church and the priest where Elena was buried, with a story about how he bought it from grave robbers. He is compensated for his trouble with money left with the priest by Anna's parents. The final scene shows him nailing the body shut into a coffin, when suddenly the lid flies off and Elena bursts out. I am left with the question, "What were Kale's motives all along?" He witnessed Frank tampering with his wife's corpse and surely must have known that Frank had stolen it. Instead of calling the police, he continues to spy on Frank and snoop in the villa instead. Even at the end, when he steps over Iris' body on the way to the basement where Frank is a bloody mess, he still contacts no one, but merely walks off with a corpse- which turns out not to be a corpse as Elena is still alive.
Still, almost all horror films have a few weaknesses, and they are far outweighed by the strong points in Buio Omega (Beyond the Darkness). The notorious Joe D'Amato, famous for effectively mixing sex and gore, has directed a film which is both viscerally and psychologically disturbing, and the blending of these two elements elevates the film beyond the status of a mere slasher. (Note: D'Amato is also the cinematographer under the alias Aristide Massaccesi). In this film D'Amato carries on the tradition of fetishising autopsy procedures, which many credit to the 1959 French film, Les Yeux San Visage (Eyes Without a Face) and which is seen in many films of the '70's, such as Armando Crispino's Machie Solari (Autopsy). In comparison to Autopsy though, this film is even further beyond the pale.
As mentioned above, Franca Stoppi steals the show as Iris. If she looks
familiar, you may have seen her in Bruno Mattei's Emanuelle in Hell (AKA Caged
Women). Another familiar face is Cinzia Monreale, who played the role of Anna,
the "exquisite corpse". She played the character Emily in Lucio
Fulci's The Beyond (AKA Seven Doors of Death), and also had a brief role in
Dario Argento's the Stendhal Syndrome. As Anna, she is arguably the most
beautiful corpse in Italian film, and provides a good case for necrophilia,
which is definitely a recurring motif here- there are several nude women in this
film, but they are all dead. Goblin, also of Argento fame, provided the
music for this film, a mixture of synth keyboards and disco beats.
Normally I would consider a Goblin soundtrack a plus, and they have done some
great ones, probably the greatest and most well known being Suspiria. I
just wasn't digging this one, although I have read reviews where some people
list it as a strong point- I suppose it's just a matter of taste.
All in all, this is a strong horror movie. Not a thrill a minute ride, but
evenly paced and dragging only occasionally. Not much suspense, just the story
of two lonely and disturbed individuals and their own little slice of hell in an
Italian villa. Gory, sexy, and repulsive are all apt and equally fitting words to
describe it. I highly recommend it.
I reviewed the recent 2002 Media Blasters (Shriek Show) DVD release.
The cover art is beautifully done and the DVD includes an informative booklet on
the background of the film, director Joe D'Amato, and the band
Goblin. It also features a very complete fourteen part chapter index, the
film's original trailor (as well as those of several other Media Blasters
releases), an audio commentary provided by art director Donatelli Donati, an
interview with Cinzia Monreale, and a slide show of still shots, movie posters,
and lobby cards- set to Goblin's theme.
Story: 4 Bitch Slaps
Extras: 5 Bitch Slaps
Picture/Audio 4 Bitch Slaps
Overall DVD: 4 Bitch Slaps