I love Lenzi's gialli offerings, or at least the one's I have experiences! I still need to see KNIFE OF ICE and A QUIET PLACE TO KILL. SPASMO and EYEBALL are some of my more favorite gialli viewings. Two very stylish yet, odd in nature but still very effective in the payoff!
It's been a long time since I first seen his SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE (1969), was that not just recently issued on DVD again??
I absolutely loved Freda's brilliant I VAMPRI! Now, what was the deal with Bava being uncredited for with this again? I know he had something to do with the overall direction, but what's the full story on that again?
Any opinions about this more recent giallo? I've heard some bad things but when I found it dirt cheap on eBay, I couldn't resist the temptation of picking it up. Figured I need to give some of the more recent horrer/thriller stuff a chance too. Still waiting for it to arrive and I'm not quite sure what to expect of it but at least it has a pretty good cast that includes famous transsexual Eva Robins from TENEBRAE (1982) and the good-looking Elisabetta Rocchietti, who has been cropping up in a lot of horror stuff like THE THREE FACES OF TERROR (2004), DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? (2005) and THE LAST HOUSE IN THE WOODS (2006). Not to mention supporting roles by Florinda Bolkan and Franco Nero! Anyone here seen it?
Interesting looking film out of Italy with Irish/Spanish co-financiers. Directed by Italian SFX man Stefano Bessoni.
In the 1600s, long before the invention of photography, a scientist named Girolamo Fumagalli was obsessed with the idea of reproducing images. He discovered that by killing a victim and removing the victim's eyeballs, it was possible to reproduce on paper the last image imprinted on that person's retinas. He named this technique 'thanatography'. Today, the same kind of gruesome ritual and abominable crime recurs within the walls of an international school of cinema. -imdb.com
Also stars the daughter of Charlie Chapman, Geraldine Chaplin as well as her daughter Oona.
Well, it seems this is yet another Argento flick that is taking a beating in the review department. Even die hard fans are not too pleased with this outing. Anyhow, the PAL R2 DVD is now out via a Polish company that found it important to force the Polish subs!
Looks like this will be getting a UK release first via Arrow Films! I still haven't seen this, it was on my radar during last year's Midnight Madness during the Toronto Film Fest. The disc will be released March 15th..
I'd love to grab this, but for now I'm holding off on the Blu-Ray player for now, too unstable industry right now. Plus, the multi-region player are way too expensive!
(2007/RUSSIA)REVIEW BY-STEVE GENIER/DIRECTED BY-IGOR SHAVIAK/CAST-DMITRI ORLOV, SVETLANA METKINA, ALEKSANDR VYSOKOVSKY, YULIYA MIKHAILOVA, ALEKSEI DMITRIYEV and OLEG KAMENSHICHIKO/SOURCE-RUSSIAN DVD (REGION 5 PAL) 2007 (78mins)
Sent by
zombi69
REVIEW BY-STEVE GENIER DIRECTED BY-IGOR SHAVIAK CAST-DMITRI ORLOV, SVETLANA METKINA, ALEKSANDR VYSOKOVSKY, YULIYA MIKHAILOVA, ALEKSEI DMITRIYEV and OLEG KAMENSHICHIKO. SOURCE-RUSSIAN DVD (REGION 5 PAL) 2007 (78mins)
Things open up with two small time thieves conjuring up the grand plan for the master bank heist. Transistioning quickly to the actual events taking place. Zeroing in on the brutal execution with a few miscued events that make things alittle rocky for the getaway. The collection of two female hostages and one beat-up cop, the escape route, an abandoned subway underground system where the getaway car is supposed to be awaiting. Little do they know, there is something lurking in the darkness of the tunnels pegging them off one by one.
Horror mixed with some quirky crime-action brings one into thinking that director Igor Shaviak had some strange yet very interesting influences during his period of putting the pieces together for this film. Echoes of those classic 70's Italian crime flicks bellowed out with every belch of bullets that rang out during the bank heist at the beginning. Yet, one it came down to the horror of things, Gary Sherman's classic underground 1972 bloodfest RAWMEAT aka DEADLINE hit me square in the face.Though in this case, TRACKMAN falls well short of competing, as there are too many downfalls that hamper this Russian offering. Yes, if the direction at the start of the film was to continue and steer away from the horror aspects, this might have worked. Don't get me wrong, I love my horror flicks, but this is just not one I can pin up as a top 100.
The characters are quickly introduced, not really given the chance to identify with them. Yes, I know this is a horror flick, who cares. The biggest drwback to characterization in TRACKMAN, is the killer himself. There is simply no reasoning as to why he is killing, or collecting the eyeballs of his victims after the fresh kills. Sure there was some suttle imagery at the end of the film, but not enough to truely understand the wieght of the killer's braindamage. Yes, there are a few scenes in TRACKMAN that will have the gorehounds salivating, but for the most part this somewhat slasher is pretty tame for today's standards. Some rather interesting chase scenes do keep you entertained for awhile, though become very tiresome quickly. Pretty much as quickly as the characters become extinct and the jar of eyeballs fills up.
The Russian DVD is a PAL region 5 release with all the Russian audios being present, 5.1, DTS etc. There is English subtitles that are quite easy to look over as the film plays out. Both audio wise and visually the disc is rather good. The extras present are of course all in the Russian with no English options, they consist of some great behind the scenes footage and an extensive stills gallery. So, essentially if you are looking to watch this film, you'll want to pick up Rami's Ghosthouse Underground dvd release available as we speak..
TRACKMAN
Things open up with two small time thieves conjuring up the grand plan for the master bank heist. Transistioning quickly to the actual events taking place. Zeroing in on the brutal execution with a few miscued events that make things alittle rocky for the getaway. The collection of two female hostages and one beat-up cop, the escape route, an abandoned subway underground system where the getaway car is supposed to be awaiting. Little do they know, there is something lurking in the darkness of the tunnels pegging them off one by one. 
