Tag: Italian Cinema

  • Spasmo (1974)

    Spasmo (1974)

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    Another movie I tracked down to watch basically because of the Ennio Morricone score, particularly the mellow, haunting title piece, Spasmo (1974) is a giallo mystery that was quite unusual. Starting off with a man (Robert Hoffmann) finding a woman knocked out on the beach (Suzy Kendall), the film’s tone is very over the top… Read.

  • A Bay Of Blood (1971)

    A Bay Of Blood (1971)

    Here’s something for Halloween. I watched A Bay Of Blood (1971; Ecologia del delitto) for the first time (one of the many alternative titles is Twitch Of The Death Nerve – what a title!). Directed by Mario Bava, this film is considered very influential in spawning the ‘slasher’ genre with many of its ‘kills’ copied… Read.

  • Spirits Of The Dead (1968)

    Following Lewis Rice O’Donnell’s recommendation, I watched Spirits Of The Dead (1968; Italian: Tre passi nel delirio, French: Histoires extraordinaires), a omnibus film of three stories based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe by different directors. The first starring Jane Fonda and directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim is about a debauched countess who becomes obsessed… Read.

  • The Cat ‘O Nine Tails (1971)

    The Cat ‘O Nine Tails (1971)

    Acquainting myself slowly with Dario Argento’s ‘animal’ giallo trilogy (because of the animals named in the title) and I had heard The Cat ‘O Nine Tails (1971; Il gatto a nove code) wasn’t as good as the first of the trilogy, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. This may be true, and apparently it is… Read.

  • Day Of Anger (1967)

    Riz Ortolani’s jazzy, bombastic, memorable score to Day Of Anger (1967; I giorni dell’ira) was used in a key sequence of Tarantino’s Django Unchained and is known from the soundtrack. Sitting down to watch this Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western, there’s also a similar plot to Django with an older, experienced gun fighter Talby (Van… Read.