People are acting like this movie is completely devoid of any merit, which is simply not true. Any true horror fan can take one look at the cast and automatically rebuke those claims before even seeing this movie. But I'll admit that it does have some major problems, glaring plot inconsistencies and annoying / awful acting... but claiming it is the worst giallo or worst horror film ever made is ridiculous.
New York music video director Alex Ritt (Rick Gianasi, SGT. KABUKIMAN) goes to Rome to direct a new video for European pop sensation Stefania Stella ("A household name in Italy!") in an effort to broaden her international appeal. Meanwhile, a cloaked psycho is hacking up beautiful young women with a machete and taunting police with black-and-white videos of his/her crimes. The bodies and blood are nowhere to be found and the same pattern of murders occurred years earlier in New York City, making Alex (whose wife had been killed by the same nut) a top suspect. Is he the victim of a psycho-stalker, being set-up by someone or is he the psycho continuing his crimes abroad? Police commissioner Bonelli (David Warbeck, who spends most of his time sitting behind a desk), Interpol agent Dr. Lucidi (Rossano Brazzi), American FBI serial killer expert Professor Robinson (Donald Pleasence) and others sort through the clumsy clues that obviously either implicates Alex or Stefania in the crimes. Pleasence, sadly aged, frail and dubbed, hobbles around on a cane, has to respond to threats like "I'll rip off your head and shove it up your @ss!" and is involved in a HALLOWEEN in-joke. Subplots introduce us to other characters/suspects, including a blind psychic (Alida Valli), Alex's former father-in-law and Broadway director (Geoffrey Copleston), a parapsychologist (Linnea Quigley), a raving graveyard dweller who may be a ghost (Angus Scrimm) and others. Most of the younger guys have long greasy ponytails so they'll be suspects when we see shadows of a long-haired killer.
The acting ranges from fair to awful, the dialog is even worse and the story itself goes all over the place, though admittedly the resolution actually did take me by surprise. This film, basically an attempt to revive giallo, is also blessed with high production values (and an obviously high budget), excellent cinematography (from Giuseppe Berardini) and breathtakingly beautiful location work around famous Roman sites (the Trevi Fountain, the Colloseum ) that make it well worth sitting through for travelogue value alone. In addition to the sites, there are tons of knowing visual and technical references to the Italian horror classics of Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Riccardo Freda and others.
Stefania Stella's phonetic English line reading is atrocious (and has a weird Eartha Kitt-like infliction to it), but she is blessed with lots of off-the-wall campy-tacky charm (similar to that of Cher in the '80s) and her singing voice and songs are hilariously corny. She also has a sex scene with Alex in front of video monitors playing her own video (!) to show off her silicone breasts. It's somewhat of a vanity project for the "actress" / singer (who gets lots of solitary close-ups and also produced it), but is an entertaining mixture nonetheless.
FATAL FRAMES took years to complete, was a winner of the "Lucio Fulci Award" at the 1996 FantaFest in Rome, features make-up effects by Steve Johnson and has a good supporting line-up of familiar genre faces to keep horror nuts happy. The special edition DVD has lots of music videos from director Festa (who had made over 100 in his native country), three Stefania Stella videos, trailers, deleted scenes, bios and a good behind-the-scenes "making of" short. It was dedicated to Pleasence and Brazzi and was the last film for both. Warbeck also passed away soon after. Much of the cast also popped up in a videotaped pseudo companion piece called SICK-O-PATHICS.
Grade: 5 out of 10
New York music video director Alex Ritt (Rick Gianasi, SGT. KABUKIMAN) goes to Rome to direct a new video for European pop sensation Stefania Stella ("A household name in Italy!") in an effort to broaden her international appeal. Meanwhile, a cloaked psycho is hacking up beautiful young women with a machete and taunting police with black-and-white videos of his/her crimes. The bodies and blood are nowhere to be found and the same pattern of murders occurred years earlier in New York City, making Alex (whose wife had been killed by the same nut) a top suspect. Is he the victim of a psycho-stalker, being set-up by someone or is he the psycho continuing his crimes abroad? Police commissioner Bonelli (David Warbeck, who spends most of his time sitting behind a desk), Interpol agent Dr. Lucidi (Rossano Brazzi), American FBI serial killer expert Professor Robinson (Donald Pleasence) and others sort through the clumsy clues that obviously either implicates Alex or Stefania in the crimes. Pleasence, sadly aged, frail and dubbed, hobbles around on a cane, has to respond to threats like "I'll rip off your head and shove it up your @ss!" and is involved in a HALLOWEEN in-joke. Subplots introduce us to other characters/suspects, including a blind psychic (Alida Valli), Alex's former father-in-law and Broadway director (Geoffrey Copleston), a parapsychologist (Linnea Quigley), a raving graveyard dweller who may be a ghost (Angus Scrimm) and others. Most of the younger guys have long greasy ponytails so they'll be suspects when we see shadows of a long-haired killer.
The acting ranges from fair to awful, the dialog is even worse and the story itself goes all over the place, though admittedly the resolution actually did take me by surprise. This film, basically an attempt to revive giallo, is also blessed with high production values (and an obviously high budget), excellent cinematography (from Giuseppe Berardini) and breathtakingly beautiful location work around famous Roman sites (the Trevi Fountain, the Colloseum ) that make it well worth sitting through for travelogue value alone. In addition to the sites, there are tons of knowing visual and technical references to the Italian horror classics of Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Riccardo Freda and others.
Stefania Stella's phonetic English line reading is atrocious (and has a weird Eartha Kitt-like infliction to it), but she is blessed with lots of off-the-wall campy-tacky charm (similar to that of Cher in the '80s) and her singing voice and songs are hilariously corny. She also has a sex scene with Alex in front of video monitors playing her own video (!) to show off her silicone breasts. It's somewhat of a vanity project for the "actress" / singer (who gets lots of solitary close-ups and also produced it), but is an entertaining mixture nonetheless.
FATAL FRAMES took years to complete, was a winner of the "Lucio Fulci Award" at the 1996 FantaFest in Rome, features make-up effects by Steve Johnson and has a good supporting line-up of familiar genre faces to keep horror nuts happy. The special edition DVD has lots of music videos from director Festa (who had made over 100 in his native country), three Stefania Stella videos, trailers, deleted scenes, bios and a good behind-the-scenes "making of" short. It was dedicated to Pleasence and Brazzi and was the last film for both. Warbeck also passed away soon after. Much of the cast also popped up in a videotaped pseudo companion piece called SICK-O-PATHICS.
Grade: 5 out of 10