Tag: Italian horror

Really Awful Movies: Ep 70b – Black Sunday with Andre from Horror Digest

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Longtime horror blogger Andre Dumas (The Horror Digest) joins our program from Boston.

We begin our chat with how Andre got into the genre and which films inspired her to delve more deeply into it. Among the films we discuss are Jaws, Suspiria, Hellraiser 2 and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. We talk about how horror films, despite their penchant for blood and guts, can actually be quite beautiful too. We also chat about where horror is going and discuss future classics such as Goodnight Mommy and The Babadook.

Since she’s a fan of Italian horror, we decided to chat about one of our faves, Mario Bava’s immortal classic, Black Sunday.

A witch/vampire hybrid, Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio; also known as The Mask of Satan and Revenge of the Vampire) is a 1960 B&W Italian Gothic horror. Based very, very loosely on Gogol’s short Viy (only a witch and the characters’ penchant for vodka survive) Black Sunday follows two doctors on route to a medical conference in Europe who get sidetracked by a…dark and dusty cobwebbed crypt! It happens to be the final (not quite) resting place of lovely witch Asa (the  gorgeous Barbara Steele) and her paramour, both burned at the stake and tortured by Inquisitors.

The film, very gory for its time, helped launch the careers of director Bava as well as beauty Barbara Steele, who went on to star in the Poe adaptation, The Pit and the Pendulum as well as Nightmare Castle and Cronenberg’s Shivers.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 66 – Nightmare City

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Nightmare City, AKA, City of the Walking Dead is an Umberto Lenzi sleaze-fest with a great soundtrack and some very gory kills.

In this 1980 outbreak movie, a TV reporter (played by Tarantino fave Hugo Stiglitz) investigates what’s turning townsfolk into hideous creatures. Turns out it’s radioactive materials from a nearby reactor.

Soon, the city is overcome by irradiated ghouls.

Few films combine utter zaniness with such inventive and disgusting gore.

Some critics have likened this to a “zombie action film” as the undead here run like sprinters, wield axes, knives and guns, and can even be convinced to board a plane to create havoc in other time zones.

Tom Savini is in the process of remaking this one. Wonder if he’ll retain the loopy ending of the original.

Welcome to….Nightmare City!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 60 – City of the Living Dead

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Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead.

Italian horror has some awesome music. This one is by Fabio Frizzi.

City of the Living Dead features otherworldly evil. We don’t like supernatural movies, but love the Italian sub-genre. In The Beyond, there was a portal to the Gates of Hell in a basement in Louisiana. Here, it’s in the town of Dunwich. Of course, this city is best known to fans of HP Lovecraft.

The town was built over the infamous Salem, haunted by witches put to death.

The movie starts with a scream and we’re in hyper Gothic territory with a priest who’s committed suicide. As this is happening, there’s a coven happening in New Yorker. “Mary” is taking part in a seance and has a seizure simultaneously. And there’s much, much more to it, including trademark Fulci delicious gore and an iconic death of everyone’s favorite Italian-horror whipping boy Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Check it out.