The Red Monks (1988) User Reviews

Twelve Red Monkies

[Bezenby · 5/10 · 29 September 2016]

This late-era Italian horror film falls somewhere near the bottom of the pile when it comes to entertainment. Ghosthouse it ain't. This shares the same lower tier as Demons 3 The Ogre and Sweet House of Horrors. I really hope I've already reviewed Demons 3...not sure I could sit through that one again.

This one has Lara Wendel being stuck up a tree and then falling into the lap of guy who marries her in his big house that somehow has a bunch of monks living in the basement who demand the blood of a virgin, namely that of Lara Wendel. If you've sat through Ghosthouse, Tenebrae, and other Wendel films and wondered if you'd ever see her naked, then this is the film for you. Also, you're not missing much.

The problem with this film is down to pacing and lack of convincing fake severed heads. Pacing seems to fluctuate from kind of creepy when peeps are trying to figure out what's going on in that house and people having domestic arguments. Fake severed heads are also a problem here as the heads involved are worse than what your six year old kid can come up with using some play-dough.

This isn't the worst 'end of era' Italian horror film (and it's nowhere near the best - check out Maya and the Spider Labyrinth) but it's one you may encounter often. If you have OCD, just get it, put it on, and let you mind drift. It's that kind of film.

Insipid potboiler

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 20 April 2012]

I was tricked into buying THE RED MONKS by the plastering of director Lucio Fulci's name on the front cover (it was only when I got home did I realise the box says "LUCIO FULCI" and then "presents" in tiny letters underneath - yep, he only gets a producer's credit here). I was hoping for a good old-fashioned Italian horror and, failing that, a semi-forgotten oddity along the lines of SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS or HOUSE OF CLOCKS. Instead what I got was a long-winded and dull outing in which very little actually happens and the story seems to float along endlessly without going anywhere.

The story is straight out of an old black and white haunted house flick of the 1960s: a beautiful young bride moves into her husband's ancestral home before being disturbed by sinister events. These include strange nightmares, her husband's frequent disappearances into the vast cellars beneath the house, the antagonism of the housekeeper and her husband's bizarre refusal to have sex with her. As written, it sounds far more interesting than it actually is, not least because the pacing is so slow and the script devoid of imagination. Horror scenes are left to a couple of nightmarish dreams, in which we see a skeleton with glowing eyes. Oh, and one of the pipe-cleaner-legged spiders from THE BEYOND makes a guest appearance, with hilarious results. The locations, especially the cobwebbed cellars, are great, so it's a shame the makers of this didn't offer a better story to fill them.

There's barely any bloodshed to mention - a couple of cheesy decapitated heads and that's about it - so director Gianni Martucci serves up titillation instead in terms of nudity from stars Wendel and Longo. The cast are wooden - not least lead Gerardo Amato, who's completely terrible in what should be a complex and imposing role - and the only actor who really fits the part is Malisa Longo as the sultry housekeeper. The title of this film alone brought to mind memories of Mickey Hargitay's red-hooded murderer in THE CRIMSON EXECUTIONER but it's a real misnomer as the red monks rarely appear and are almost incidental to the plot.

Don't be fooled by the Fulci connection.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 26 October 2009]

The packaging for the DVD of The Red Monks displays Lucio Fulci's name rather prominently, despite the fact that he only produced the film; it's a rather desperate attempt to fool fans of Euro horror into thinking that the film's director Gianni Martucci may have been influenced by the king of Italian gore and saw fit to throw in some cheap and cheerful splatter. The truth is, however, that The Red Monks is a fairly 'dry' film, with the only carnage being a couple of crap decapitated heads; to make matters worse, it's also extremely boring.

Martucci's dull as ditch-water screenplay sees wealthy bachelor Robert Garlini (Gerardo Amato) meeting a beautiful painter named Ramona Curtis (Lara Wendel). After a brief romance, the pair marry, and Ramona moves into the family home—a sprawling castle complete with dusty passageways and dingy cellars—much to the consternation of housekeeper Priscilla.

On their first night together, Robert is called away for several hours to deal with some urgent business, but on his return, rather than rush to his bride and indulge in unbridled passion, the crazy fool rejects his virginal wife's sexual advances. This strange behaviour continues for several days, and the relationship naturally turns sour. Robert has his reasons, though: firstly, he's been getting his oats from Priscilla, but more importantly, he is ensuring that his wife is pure when the time comes for him to hand her over to the Satanic sect of Templar knights that inhabit the castle cellar.

Despite a few fun elements, including quite a bit of nudity from gorgeous star Wendel, a silly skeleton with glowing eyes, a guest appearance by one of the pipe-cleaner spiders from Fulci's The Beyond, and a 'twist' ending, The Red Monks is a monotonous and stuffy effort that I believe even the most obsessive of Italian horror afficianados will find hard to endure.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

Has a few things going for it

[lazarillo · 16 February 2014]

This movie is kind of a throw-back to the Italian Gothic horror films of the 1960's. A man inherits a family castle. He has a dubbed Italian version of a "meet cute" with a female painter (Lara Wendel), after his dog trees her, and he marries her after a whirlwind romance. However, he has something going on in his cellar with a strange order of monks dressed in red (thus, the title), who warn him that his new bride must remain a virgin, so after their wedding night is reduced to some gratuitous breast-suckling, the husband instead takes up with his severe, but sexy housekeeper. The wife meanwhile discovers that her new husband is up to something in the cellar and discovers a family curse involving an ancestor who killed the head of the order of monks after he was "seduced" by a Gypsy girl (actually it looks more like he just rapes her). The ending will surprise or confuse you--maybe both.

This movie has SOME of the gratuitous material you would expect from an Italian film of this era, mostly the scene where the monk chases and has his way (for several minutes) with a skinny-dipping Gypsy girl, and another memorable scene where a minor character's head ends up in a picnic basket (perhaps she was attacked by Yogi and Boo Boo?). But actually at times this movie is more atmospheric, more like a 60's Italian horror film, even if the plot doesn't really make a lick of sense (actually, not unlike a 60's Italian horror film). The goofy English dubbing doesn't help though, and is pretty suspect at times like when characters talk about a ritual that will occur at the "next opening of Uranus" (They may not have been taking their jobs entirely seriously).

Lara Wendel is a pretty interesting actress. She is known mostly for a small role in Dario Argento's "Tenebrae" and for appearances in more low-rent 80's Italian horror flicks like "Midnight Killer", "Ghost House" and Killer Birds". She also was a pretty decent actress though who had a more high-brow career with a major role as male and female twins in Salvatore Samperi's "Ernesto" and with small roles in "Identification of a Woman" and even an obscure Fellini movie. But ALL of these came out of her questionable early career as a kind of "Euro-Lolita" (along with actresses like Eve Ionesco, Katja Beirnert, Katya Berger, Susan Hemingway, and a young Nastassia Kinski). Suffice it to say, that while this isn't an especially sexy role, it's ironically the only sexy role she did AFTER she turned 18.

This movie is at times confusing and general pretty dumb, but it does have a few things going for it.

Rent,don't buy

[gareth-l · 5/10 · 18 April 2006]

I was a little disappointed after watching this film the first time, it was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be, oh well. The film is rather flat as far as the plot goes and the acting is a little wooden, though the English dubbing is not too badly done. Some of the special effects are cheap and amateurish and the ending was a little confusing(or was it just to me) and there was a little nudity thrown in for good measure. Despite its flaws though it has grown on me and I quite enjoy this film now, I really want one of those red robes! I would suggest to anyone thinking of watching this movie that you rent it rather than buy it until you have made your own mind.

Nothing to see here!

[The_Void · 4/10 · 17 January 2008]

I didn't expect much going into this film, and it's a really good job that I didn't because Red Monks really doesn't deliver! The film offers little that you can't get from several better devils/exploitation flicks. The film has Lucio Fulci's name attached to it since the great director has a producers credit; but I don't know why that attracted me since even the films that Fulci did direct around the late eighties were mostly not up to much. This one is directed by Gianni Martucci, and while the director has something of an eye for aesthetics, he's not great at creating tension and it results in a very boring film. The story revolves around some ancient ritual involving a bunch of people dressed in red monk robes. The wealthy owner of a castle where this takes place meets a pretty young woman and marries her. She goes to live in the castle and soon becomes frustrated by her husband's secretive night time behaviour. People start dying and her husband's secret becomes in danger of being revealed; but maybe his secret is not the most surprising. The film drones on for about eighty minutes and there's very little that's memorable about it. In fact, the only sequence I can remember well is a scene with the most ridiculously fake spider I've ever seen, and considering I only saw it last night - it has to be said that this film is not overly memorable. It all boils down to a supposedly surprising twist that I guessed before the film even started. Overall, it has to be said that Red Monks is a big waste of time and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone!

Great To Unload The Dishwasher To

[paul-day-clone · 3/10 · 31 October 2016]

At first, I thought this was a TV effort, given the dull, flat, boring look of it all. Everything is off on it. Given that it was probably shot on video, everything is far too bright to bring out any kind of atmosphere. Plot-wise, it's ridiculous. The basis for the marriage between two vacant people hinges on her falling out of a tree because...of a tarantula...that we only see one more time. Honestly - she falls out of the tree and they cut right to the wedding. The movie plods along with cliché after cliché that they can't even be bothered to do properly. Sporadic use of hand held cameras and fish- eye lenses only confuse the issue more. To keep the budget low there are no extras. Period. This could be used to good effect with some back story but back story isn't what this is about. That is, except for a 10-15min sequence towards the end where all the "secrets" are spilled. As noted, the budgeted no money for special effects meaning no flying heads, no wounds, no gore of any kind unless you count the $1.50 they spent of fake blood in one scene. Sub par acting. Some nudity. No suspense.

I'm happy I didn't pay to see this.

Not Fulci

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 1 November 2021]

You know, it's strange that the name Lucio Fulci had such power and in 1988 he couldn't get the funding or attention to make a movie. That's why it's so weird that this film's producer, Pino Buricchi, made a big deal out of the fact that Fulci did the special effects for this movie and may have even co-directed the movie.

Imagine how director Gianni Martucci (Trhauma) felt getting Spielberged by The Godfather of Gore, even saying that Fulci was too sick to work on the movie.

When Fulci saw the poster - which says Lucio Fulci presents - he replied, "Presents what?" The first time that he claims that he heard about this movie was when it was released on video.

Ramona Curtis (Lara Wendel, Ghosthouse) has married Robert Garlini and moved into his ancestral home, which seems nice, but he's always down in the basement instead of down on her, so that leads her to follow him and she soon learns of his family curse. I mean, she has some secrets as well, but these red-robed monks in the basement demand her virgin blood every four days. And that's, well, it's a little invasive, right?

Fulci sued this movie and got a sticker put on every box to say that he wasn't the director. Good for him.

Mediocre Italian horror produced by Lucio Fulci.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 6/10 · 18 July 2006]

A newlywed couple move into an old Italian castle.Soon the wife becomes suspicious of the husband's constant disappearances deep into the environs of their new home and decides to investigate.She discovers that in her home exists an ancient evil cult of devil worshipping monks.Descendants of the Knights Templar,this secret society of Satanists perform their diabolical rituals in the castle's catacombs and seek out the blood of virgins to complete their sacrificial killings."The Red Monks" by Gianni Martucci is a pretty boring horror film.This forgettable satanic horror is surprisingly low on gore or scares:the only saving grace of it is a decent amount of female nudity.The special effects are crude and amateurish and the performances are mediocre at their best.Give it a look only if you are a rabid Fulci completist.6 out of 10 and that's being generous.

It's not the best example but it delivers in certain areas.

[RatedVforVinny · 6/10 · 18 October 2019]

A much overlooked horror that contains some stylish blood-letting and a high level of erotica. Exactly the kind of film that received virtually no exposure at the time of its release here in the UK (thanks to our overprotective censors) but directors such as Lucio Fulci (the producer of this one), delivered 100's of these to a wanting euro audience, who simply lapped them up! Strange to think but this oddball was almost populist cinema for the italians, back in the 1980's.

Revenge of the Red Monks

[Michael_Elliott · 16 July 2016]

The Red Monks (1988)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Robert (Gerardo Amato) marries Ramona (Lara Wendel) after a quick romance and soon they move to his castle out in the middle of nowhere. On their wedding night they're unable to do the special deed because Robert is called away where a group of monks demand that his wife's virgin blood be given to them in four days.

THE RED MONKS was one of the handful of movies that were released in Italy towards the end of their glory days of horror films. These films were released with Lucio Fulci's name attached to them but he served just as a producer. With that said, none of them are all that entertaining and the same is true with THE RED MONKS, which suffers the same low-budget that the other films did.

The low-budget means that there really aren't any of the gory special effects that one would come to expect. A lot of the death scenes here take place off screen, although there is one decent decapitation. The film does serve up a fair amount of nudity but this here just isn't enough to keep the film entertaining. The biggest problem is that there's just way too much boring dialogue that really doesn't go anywhere. The entire time I kept wondering why the husband just didn't take the wife's virginity, which would have solved the problem but oh well.

THE RED MONKS isn't overly awful but there's just no atmosphere to be found. The film for the most part has a very slow pace and in the end there's just not enough entertainment value to be had.