As an audience comes together for an afternoon showing of a western* called I Giorno Dell'Ira starring Giuliano Gemma (A Pistol for Ringo, Arizona Colt), one of the moviegoers is shot by the actor. As his gun smokes on screen, an old man lies dying. The cops investigate and learn that nearly everyone has something to hide, from a couple having an affair to two small-time criminals (Tony Kendall is one of them), some student protesters and a sociologist (Flavio Bucci) who has the feeling that this is all like a Ray Bradbury story.
The police make everyone remain in the theater, basically living there, surviving off of the snack bar and meals brought in from the outside world. The entire situation is photographed and then run back, recreated, which leads to a second person being shot. This frustrates the inspector, who makes the entire theater remain and watch it again, with him sitting in the place where two men have already died.
This is a movie not just about a murder but movies itself. There are posters for Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, The Girl in Room 2A, Day of Anger, Torn Curtain, Four Flies On Grey Velvet, You'll Like My Mother, Squirm, The Perfume of the Lady In Black, King Kong, A*P*E* under the Italian name Super Kong and Tentacles. The moment that changes the movie, the gun being shot, changes the film from something that everyone is watching in a passive way to the most involving viewing they have ever seen. The film come alive, much like Cinema Paradiso or a movie that I am sure this had more than a small influence on, Demons.
Director Giuliano Montaldo made a movie that is at once a giallo and a science fiction story, as well as one that defies being easily figured out.
*It's actually E per tetto un cielo di stelle (A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof).
The police make everyone remain in the theater, basically living there, surviving off of the snack bar and meals brought in from the outside world. The entire situation is photographed and then run back, recreated, which leads to a second person being shot. This frustrates the inspector, who makes the entire theater remain and watch it again, with him sitting in the place where two men have already died.
This is a movie not just about a murder but movies itself. There are posters for Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, The Girl in Room 2A, Day of Anger, Torn Curtain, Four Flies On Grey Velvet, You'll Like My Mother, Squirm, The Perfume of the Lady In Black, King Kong, A*P*E* under the Italian name Super Kong and Tentacles. The moment that changes the movie, the gun being shot, changes the film from something that everyone is watching in a passive way to the most involving viewing they have ever seen. The film come alive, much like Cinema Paradiso or a movie that I am sure this had more than a small influence on, Demons.
Director Giuliano Montaldo made a movie that is at once a giallo and a science fiction story, as well as one that defies being easily figured out.
*It's actually E per tetto un cielo di stelle (A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof).