Successful American horror novelist Cheryl (Virginia Bryant) has suffered from recurring nightmares since she was a child; in these dreams, she finds herself in a dark cellar where she witnesses the birth of a hideous monster from a gelatinous, glowing sac attached to the ceiling.
While vacationing at an old Italian castle with her husband Tom (Paolo Malco) and young son Bob (are all irritating kids in Italian horror films called Bob?), Cheryl's nightmares become reality, as she and her family are terrorised by an ogre that lurks in the shadowy basement.
Don't let the Demons 3 monicker fool you into thinking The Ogre is another dose of gloopy, gory fun from Lamberto Bava: what we have here is a really lame made-for-TV snooze-fest that has no real connection with the director's earlier Demons movies, and which is totally devoid of the splattery craziness that made those film so enjoyable.
The Ogre consists of a series of not-in-the-least-bit-scary supernatural scenes that make very little sense, the film running on the same type of dream logic (i.e., absence of logic) as many a late 80s Italian horror, where anything can happen and nothing is adequately explained.
There's some ridiculous nonsense about the scent of orchids attracting the monster, Cheryl gets more and more hysterical while wandering around the sprawling castle corridors (and diving into a corpse-strewn swimming pool in the cellar?!?!), and Bob plays hide and seek with his pretty babysitter Maria (whose sister Anna is a major hottie). All the while, Cheryl tries to explain her concerns to her long-suffering husband, but he is having none of it, at least until the ogre finally makes an appearance (turning out to be a man in a fancy tunic, a bad rubber mask and hairy gloves).
In a suitably weak ending, Cheryl runs over the ogre in her car and it disappears. Was the creature simply a manifestation of her life-long fear that has finally been vanquished? Do we really care?
Simon Boswell's cool synth score lends a touch of class to proceedings, but the most memorable things about the whole film are, as far as I'm concerned, hot sisters Anna and Maria (who ALMOST provide some nudity), and the fact that, according to end credits, filming took place in the Castle of Arsoli, which almost made me snort some tea out of my nose.
While vacationing at an old Italian castle with her husband Tom (Paolo Malco) and young son Bob (are all irritating kids in Italian horror films called Bob?), Cheryl's nightmares become reality, as she and her family are terrorised by an ogre that lurks in the shadowy basement.
Don't let the Demons 3 monicker fool you into thinking The Ogre is another dose of gloopy, gory fun from Lamberto Bava: what we have here is a really lame made-for-TV snooze-fest that has no real connection with the director's earlier Demons movies, and which is totally devoid of the splattery craziness that made those film so enjoyable.
The Ogre consists of a series of not-in-the-least-bit-scary supernatural scenes that make very little sense, the film running on the same type of dream logic (i.e., absence of logic) as many a late 80s Italian horror, where anything can happen and nothing is adequately explained.
There's some ridiculous nonsense about the scent of orchids attracting the monster, Cheryl gets more and more hysterical while wandering around the sprawling castle corridors (and diving into a corpse-strewn swimming pool in the cellar?!?!), and Bob plays hide and seek with his pretty babysitter Maria (whose sister Anna is a major hottie). All the while, Cheryl tries to explain her concerns to her long-suffering husband, but he is having none of it, at least until the ogre finally makes an appearance (turning out to be a man in a fancy tunic, a bad rubber mask and hairy gloves).
In a suitably weak ending, Cheryl runs over the ogre in her car and it disappears. Was the creature simply a manifestation of her life-long fear that has finally been vanquished? Do we really care?
Simon Boswell's cool synth score lends a touch of class to proceedings, but the most memorable things about the whole film are, as far as I'm concerned, hot sisters Anna and Maria (who ALMOST provide some nudity), and the fact that, according to end credits, filming took place in the Castle of Arsoli, which almost made me snort some tea out of my nose.