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!
(1979/ITALY)[a.k.a. La ragazza del vagone letto] Review By-Johan Melle Cast: Silvia Dionisio, Werner Pochath, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Carlo De Mejo, Zora Kerova, Fausto Lombardi, Gino Milli, Fiammetta Flamini, Roberto Caporali, Venantino Venantini, Gianca
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(1979/ITALY)[a.k.a. La ragazza del vagone letto] Review By-Johan Melle Cast: Silvia Dionisio, Werner Pochath, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Carlo De Mejo, Zora Kerova, Fausto Lombardi, Gino Milli, Fiammetta Flamini, Roberto Caporali, Venantino Venantini, Giancarlo Maestri, Antonio Maimone, Gianfranca Dionisi, Andrea Scotti, Gianfilippo Carcano, Rita Livesi, Cesare Gelli. Directed by Ferdinando Baldi. Written by George Eastman. Source: DVD-R of Dutch VHS
Italian director Ferdinando Baldi passed away in November 2007 at the respectable age of 90. To most fans of Italian cinema, Baldi is remembered mainly for his numerous Spaghetti westerns such as GOODBYE TEXAS (1966), VIVA DJANGO (1968), FORGOTTEN PISTOLERO (1969) and BLINDMAN (1971). He also experienced a brief popularity in the US in the early 1980s with his two 3D adventures COMIN’ AT YA! (1981) and TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (1983) starring Tony Anthony. But Baldi didn’t only dabble in western and adventure territory. No, he actually made another, considerable lesser known exploitation film called TERROR EXPRESS! And truth be told, this outrageous work is the director’s most genuinely enjoyable film.
The film kicks off at a train station where a bunch of widely assorted characters hop onboard the night train. The crowd we’re introduced to includes Mike (Venantino Venantini) and Anna (Zora Kerova), a bickering, estranged married couple who are taking a trip together in a last ditch effort to save their relationship; Hobbes (Antonio Maimone), an arrogant, filthy business man and his poor, doting assistant Willis (Andrea Scotti); Harold (Gianfilippo Carcano) and Mary (Rita Livesi), a sweet, elderly couple where the wife is suffering from a bad case of asthma; and then there’s a policeman (Giancarlo Maestri) who’s transporting a handcuffed prisoner, Peter (Gianluigi Chirizzi). Not to worry, though. Even though these guys are cliché stock characters right out of a 1970s Hollywood disaster movie, this is no AIRPORT on wheels. No, director Baldi and screenwriter George Eastman have exploitation, not disaster, on the agenda, and throw a bunch of filthier characters into the mix. There’s Juliet (Silvia Dionisio), a beautiful prostitute with a heart of gold. She has struck a profitable deal with the train’s conductor (Gino Millo), who functions as a sort of pimp by setting her up with various horny train passengers. We also have a seemingly nice couple (Roberto Caporali and Gianfranca Dionisi), who are traveling together with their attractive teenage daughter Evelyn (Fiammetta Flamini). But naturally they’re not as nice as they seem: the father is a sleazy scumbag with incestuous feelings for his daughter. At one point he even steals her nightgown and then goes to the prostitute’s compartment – getting her to put on the nightgown so he can pretend she’s his daughter while having sex with her! Classy! And, finally, there are three young, trouble-making punks called Dave (Werner Pochath), Ernie (Carlo De Mejo) and Phil (Fausto Lombardi). After some loud, bratty behavior in the restaurant car, the three obnoxious thugs really show their mean side by raping one of the women in the toilets. The policeman tries to put a stop to them but the punks overpower him and get his gun. Now, they are in total control of the train and keep all the passengers prisoners – subjecting them to every kind of humiliation and abuse they can think up. Will any of the passengers survive their ordeal on the terror express?
With all the countless rip-offs of Wes Craven’s THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) doing the rounds in the 70s, I guess it was only a matter of time before someone came up with the idea of setting a LAST HOUSE rip-off on a train. Actually, they had done that already in Aldo Lado’s NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS (1975) but in this film we stay on the train throughout the entire running time. And while it isn’t as brutal and violent as either Craven’s or Lado’s film, TERROR EXPRESS! more than compensates for this by upping the trash and sleaze factor to an absolute maximum.
The filth and nudity is piled on almost from start to finish, and it’s all handled with such outrageously bad taste that only the Italians could pull off. Most of the female characters end up being raped at least once, and in typical un-politically correct fashion, most of them are shown to be pretty much begging for it. The film’s most notorious sequence features the beautiful Czech actress Zora Kerova being the victim of a standing double penetration sandwich rape by Carlo De Mejo and Fausto Lombardi in the train bathroom. Of course, that’s after she was eying them in the restaurant car and acting all horny, so of course she had it coming, George Eastman’s script seems to reason. Not only that, but this entire, highly explicit, sequence is clearly meant to titillate the male audience; with the victim putting up a rather weak struggle and then seems to be getting some enjoyment out of it all. This is all so jaw-droppingly offensive that Baldi couldn’t have made it any more tasteless even if he wanted to. And let’s not forget the equally sordid scene where the punks make the male passengers roll a dice to decide which of them will get to deflower the pretty, young teenage girl! This is just as outrageous as it sounds but it’s also completely silly and impossible to take seriously. When it all comes down to it, bad taste never hurt anyone, so take this for what it is: un-politically correct but harmless and fun trash.
Of course, all the wacky fun is greatly aided by a powerhouse of outstanding B-movie veterans. Austrian actor Werner Pochath from THE IGUANA WITH THE TONGUE OF FIRE (1971) and THE SHARK HUNTER (1979) takes on yet another filthy bad guy role, and obviously has a great time. It’s also amusing to see a young Fausto Lombardi from RATS – NIGHT OF TERROR (1983) and SHOCKING DARK (1989) in an early role with hair! But the biggest surprise is Carlo De Mejo, who most of us remember for playing kind, whimpish-looking characters in the likes of CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) and THE OTHER HELL (1980). Here, De Mejo has a full-on, slimy bad guy role, which is highly atypical of him but it’s great fun to watch him act like this. The gorgeous Silvia Dionisio looks smashing and is pretty good as the tough but kind hooker-heroine. Dionisio was freshly divorced from genre director Ruggero Deodato at the time and her career seemed to take a dive after their split; with her appearing in increasingly sleazy films before dropping out of acting altogether in the early 1980s. It’s also great to see the attractive Zora Kerova gets her first taste of Italian over-the-top abuse here – she later went on to further horrors by getting her throat slashed, being strung up with hooks through her breasts and getting a broken bottle shoved into her vagina in various gory Italian horror films. All for the sake of art, of course. Surprisingly, the hero of the piece is Gianluigi Chirizzi as the prisoner being transported, and who turns out to be a nice bloke. Thin-haired Chirizzi, whose character is supposed to be 23 years old (hah!), is better known from Andrea Bianchi’s silly zombie film BURIAL GROUND (1981) but does a pretty good job here. Accompanying him is fellow BURIAL GROUND actor Roberto Caporali, who has just the right look to play the sweaty, nasty father who lusts after his daughter. Playing the hot, blonde daughter is Fiammetta Flamini, a popular singer at the time, who proves herself quite uninhibited here in her only film role. Too bad she never did any more as she certainly had the looks.
Technically, the film is relatively well-shot but since it’s set entirely on a train, this doesn’t allow for the most exciting scenery or camerawork. Marcello Giombini’s synthesizer score is pretty cool, though, and very much in keeping with the tone of the film.
As far as violence goes, there isn’t much of it here, as Baldi’s aim appears to be solely on over-the-top sleaze and humiliation. Oh, and on insults! The foul-mouthed insults and bad language exhibited on the English-dubbed track is a total hoot that further adds to the film’s trash value. The always reliable Nick Alexander directed the English dubbing and also provides the voice for the train’s conductor/pimp. Alexander has selected a perfect group of instantly recognizable voice actors to dub the rest of the characters too, and they all have a field-day with their trashy dialogue: Susan Spafford, who often dubbed Evelyn Stewart and Margit Evelyn Newton, dubs the voice Silvia Dionisio’s heroine/whore (“With a jerk like you I’d never climax”), while the omnipresent Carolyn De Fonseca voices the teenage girl’s mother (“You’re a filthy pig!”). However, the top dubbing honors go to Frank Von Kuegelgen, the guy who usually dubbed Tomas Milian and Paolo Malco, for doing an excellent job on dubbing Werner Pochath in terrific, slimy S.O.B. fashion. He has too many quotable gems to list but you’ve got to love how he insults Venantino Venantini’s character about his wife’s sandwich rape: “I hear she’s quite a good lay and that she likes having it up both ends.”
Well, there isn’t anything more to say really. TERROR EXPRESS! is one of the filthiest, seediest films of the golden age of Italian trash cinema and, as such, an absolute must-see. Very highly recommended! Now, where’s the DVD!?
TERROR EXPRESS!
Italian director Ferdinando Baldi passed away in November 2007 at the respectable age of 90. To most fans of Italian cinema, Baldi is remembered mainly for his numerous Spaghetti westerns such as GOODBYE TEXAS (1966), VIVA DJANGO (1968), FORGOTTEN PISTOLERO (1969) and BLINDMAN (1971). He also experienced a brief popularity in the US in the early 1980s with his two 3D adventures COMIN’ AT YA! (1981) and TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (1983) starring Tony Anthony. But Baldi didn’t only dabble in western and adventure territory. No, he actually made another, considerable lesser known exploitation film called TERROR EXPRESS! And truth be told, this outrageous work is the director’s most genuinely enjoyable film. 
Italians could pull off. Most of the female characters end up being raped at least once, and in typical un-politically correct fashion, most of them are shown to be pretty much begging for it. The film’s most notorious sequence features the beautiful Czech actress Zora Kerova being the victim of a standing double penetration sandwich rape by Carlo De Mejo and Fausto Lombardi in the train bathroom. Of course, that’s after she was eying them in the restaurant car and acting all horny, so of course she had it coming, George Eastman’s script seems to reason. Not only that, but this entire, highly explicit, sequence is clearly meant to titillate the male audience; with the victim putting up a rather weak struggle and then seems to be getting some enjoyment out of it all. This is all so jaw-droppingly offensive that Baldi couldn’t have made it any more tasteless even if he wanted to. And let’s not forget the equally sordid scene where the punks make the male passengers roll a dice to decide which of them will get to deflower the pretty, young teenage girl! This is just as outrageous as it sounds but it’s also completely silly and impossible to take seriously. When it all comes down to it, bad taste never hurt anyone, so take this for what it is: un-politically correct but harmless and fun trash. 
Technically, the film is relatively well-shot but since it’s set entirely on a train, this doesn’t allow for the most exciting scenery or camerawork. Marcello Giombini’s synthesizer score is pretty cool, though, and very much in keeping with the tone of the film. 
