Tag: Italian horror

Really Awful Movies: Ep 358 – Absurd

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On this week’s episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, a bit more Italian horror for ya.

Welcome to a discussion of Absurd, which goes variously by Anthropophagus 2, Zombie 6: Monster Hunter, Horrible and The Grim Reaper 2 in keeping with the title multiplication common to Italian exploitation genre cinema.

It’s a batty 1981 slasher directed by multi-talented director Joe D’Amato and starring the towering figure of George Eastman (all 6’9 of him) who wrote the story and the screenplay – though that’s not exactly anything you’d really want to cop to.

Eastman plays Mikos, the subject of a mysterious Vatican experiment from which he’s on the lam. The monsignor who helped create him, Frankenstein-style, is chasing after him. The madman gets impaled on a high fence, kinda like Hell Night (which we podcasted a while back). But, like Mike Myers, he’s hard to kill (or rather, like Steven Seagal, he’s hard to kill!).

Mikos is revived at the local hospital, which is bad move. They should not have resuscitated him. The priest informs the hospital and authorities that the only way to kill Mikos is to ‘destroy the cerebral mass,’ whatever the hell that is.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 357 – Paganini Horror

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On this week’s episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, not enough sax and violins together, but plenty of the latter, as we visit Italian horror and Paganini Horror.

The plot revolves around a failing female rock band, whose manager is beside herself about their inability to drum up, so to speak, a hit. Desperate, she solicits a strange piece of music, via the group’s producer called Le Streghe, aka, The Witches.

It’s a long lost piece by the eponymous and infamous in some circles, Italian composer and musician, Niccolo Paganini.

Paganini, like Robert Johnson much later, apparently sold his soul to the devil in order to totally shred on his instrument. Ah, the classic Faustian bargain horror. Join us. Grab your bow, rosin it up, and play along with.

Is this movie a Stradivarius, or is more of a cheap dime-store fiddle? You tell us!

Really Awful Movies: Ep 355 – A Classic Horror Story

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On this episode of the podcast, a little bit of Italian horror – but not THAT kind of Italian Horror. Usually on the Really Awful Movies Podcast, we dive into the work of Bava, Fulci and Argento. This time around, it’s 2021’s A Classic Horror Story, a modern Italian horror flick that’s a hicksploitation/folk horror hybrid that’s moderately effective.

The plot? A rideshare trip through the mountains of Calabria, in Southern Italy, takes a dangerous turn – literally. What will happen to the vehicle’s occupants? You know the drill…and that’s not a veiled reference to Driller Killer.

A Classic Horror Story borrows elements from The Ritual, Rituals, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but is its own beast. There’s a split between detractors and supports, and this discussion reflects that.

Tune in, and subscribe…and pick up a copy of our first book, Death by Umbrella! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons (foreword: Lloyd Kaufman, from Troma). It’s a must-read for the horror-obsessed, of which we are.