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Reviews
Don't Answer the Phone! (1980)
One Hell of a Movie
I got this movie on the X-Rated Kult label (German) as part of my "big box" collection (i.e. Continental Video, ThrillerVideo, Wizard Video, etc). The closest they have to those boxes in the disc-era come from Germany and Austria. It looks/sounds pretty good, but I haven't compared it to the (newer) US discs.
I wasn't expecting much, but this turned out to be a GOOD movie. Not "good" in the sense that it is not stupid. Good in the sense that it keeps you entertained from the start to finish. All of the characters are idiots to some extent and that makes them a lot more fun to watch.
It's not a "mystery" any more than your standard "Friday the 13th" sequel, so there's not much in the terms of spoilers I could think of in those terms. You know from the very beginning who the killer is.
...and Nicholas Worth makes one of the coolest "bad guys" you've ever seen. He'd definitely make the Top-10 if there was one. I would try to describe him, but cannot really find the words. This is as good as I could come up with: He is BIG (muscular), SCARY (crazy, crazy, crazy), MEAN (he IS a serial killer) and DUMB.
The story mainly just follows the guy around killing women, always leaving a memento with their corpses. He is also obsessed with a female psychiatrist. He will call her radio show often and will seek out her patients as victims. She works with the police, knowing the killer will call again, in order to protect herself and her female patients. The cops and other officials are rather dimwitted, sexist and clueless too boot.
A lot of those plot pieces sound like they'd be good in a giallo or some other mystery, only "we" know who the killer is the whole time...
So the main thing you do with this movie is just watch the dumb-as-rocks cops and the slightly smarter lady psychiatrist try to figure out who the killer is and stop him. It takes longer than you'd expect, as anybody that catches so much as a glance at Worth knows that he is one screwed-up freak! And he gets out- and-about in the city, not lurking in some shadowy house most of the time or anything like that. I guess complete, creepy weirdos must have been common in LA back then.
So you should watch it. It's got great late-1970's LA locations, sleaze, stupidity, trashiness, a little suspense and some cool music.
La casa 5 (1990)
At its best when you are drinking and/or smoking
This movie is a little bit stupid. But that is one of its best qualities. Acting ain't great. Special effects even worse (OK, they're better than SOME of the actors).
I couldn't get over David Brandon (Caligula in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082133/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_152) playing a priest. He may be a drunk, but still a man of the cloth. I still can't make it through Caligula 2: The Untold Story in one sitting. It is not only kind of mean-spirited, but actually gross.
I got this on X-Rated (German video label, not MPAA) DVD in a fat box (große hartbox) and the box/case is actually a whole lot better than the film. Way better, as a matter of fact. It's called "Ghost House 6" on the box. Pretty sure it's called "Beyond Darkness" in the credits.
Flavia, la monaca musulmana (1974)
This film has a reputation as being a violent exploitation film, but despite some violence and nudity, is too great of a film to be lumped into the "Nunsploitation" genre
Expecting to see another Nunsploitation movie with a mean Mother Superior abusing and torturing her charges, Flavia turned out to be MUCH more than I had anticipated.
It actually has a feminist storyline, though I don't think such a term existed in the era in which the movie is set. It certainly wasn't practiced. Women (and the Jews and the poor) are very downtrodden and locked into menial spots in society. Throughout the story, Sister Flavia (Florinda Bolkan) witnesses the tyranny of her time until she just can't sit there any longer and actually does something about it, albeit with disastrous results.
The pre-credit sequence has Flavia as a young adolescent near a battlefield. She sees an injured "evil" Muslim soldier (one of the few still alive) and tries to assist him. Before she can, her hate-filled father beheads the soldier and waves his head in her face (great family dynamics, huh?). After this, her father forces her to join a convent where she witnesses even more injustice. Though scenes do involve violence, rape and nuns, I would consider this more of a historical drama than Nunsploitation.
Indeed, many of the ingredients for a trashy exploitation piece are there, but the acting, camera-work, storyline and music are too good to keep it down in that level. Most "nun" films I've seen usually have the basic premise of: A good girl somehow winds up in a convent, where the Mother Superior is a supreme bitch that likes to whip people and/or make their lives a living hell.
Flavia spends much of the first part of he movie passively questioning all of the atrocities happening around her. Much of her passivity is forgotten when she becomes acquainted with the strong-spirited (but slightly loony- she likes to pee outside like me, but it's a lot easier for guys) Sister Agatha. When a group of Muslims attack their abbey, Flavia and Agatha do not cower in fear like the other nuns. Their attackers actually function as their liberators (of the cruelty and near-slavery of the abbey). In fact, it is a Christian, not a Muslim invader, that impales dear Sister Agatha.
It is Agatha's death that sends Flavia on her violent crusade against those who have oppressed her... Her father treats her like dirt. Her Muslim lover deserts her at a very inopportune time. I don't want to give out too much of the rest of the story, but be prepared to be shocked, devastated and saddened at the conclusion. This is a great film, so don't be put off by its (undeserved) reputation as a trash epic. Plus, how on Earth could a movie featuring Florinda Bolkan and Claudio Cassinelli go wrong? I am not familiar with María Casares' other works, but Sister Agatha is a hell of a character.
I have read many great reviews of the Synapse (US) release, but I love my German X-Rated Kult DVD copy. It isn't anamorphic/16:9, but actually has a little more picture information on all of the edges than Synapse's release.
And there are also many great, wise or funny lines of dialogue (many from Sister Agatha)
"Why is God male? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
They're all male!" -Flavia
"These men are afraid- look at them, Sister- Afraid their power will be taken away from them!" -Sr. Agatha (regarding Christians fleeing after the Muslims arrive)
"Woman, where are you going? The Moslems can do nothing to you that the Christians haven't done! Ha Ha Ha!" -Sr. Agatha (to a group of fleeing Christian women)
"Lord bless these Moslems- For putting fear into these pompous Christians." -Flavia
"Does it take the mere sight of a Moslem to make you $h!t your underclothing?" -Sr. Agatha
Closing message: "Flavia Gaetani, not yet a Muslim - no longer a Christian - was punished as a runaway nun. The idea for the film came from events which occurred during the Musalman invasions of Italy culminating in what even today is remembered as THE MARTYRDOM OF THE 800 AT OTRANTO"
Enigma rosso (1978)
German DVD kinda cropped but best available
I purchased the German DVD released by Eyecatcher Movies. The picture quality is decent (in terms of sharpness, grain, color, etc.) but it is cropped (moreso on 4x3 TVs).
It was released in Germany in 2008 by Eyecatcher Movies and/or New Entertainment as "Orgie des Todes / Enigma Rosso." The disc has German, English and Spanish audio (DD 2.0 - mono/stereo?) and German subtitles. It may be uncut, as the box lists 84 minutes. I don't know many details about PAL/NTSC conversion, but know that PAL running times are slightly longer when played in NTSC.
The case SAYS that it is 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. It is not. It is cropped to 1.85:1 or maybe even 1.66:1. You get better compositions and picture info than the mid-80s Wizard Video release, but when you can't read all of the opening titles, you know it is still cropped. But it sure beats a full-screen transfer of a 2.35:1 film, which is all that I had seen until I got this disc.
*My ratings score (5) was for the DVD transfer/quality rather than the film, which I like more than a "5."
*** I was watching it (when I wrote this) on a "regular" TV. The aspect ratio appears closer to 2.35:1 on a widescreen TV, but there IS some cropping which can be seen in the opening credits (words extending beyond screen).***