The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971) aka Una Farfalla Con Le Ali Insanguinate

2 / 5 Oct '10
Tagline: N/A
Directed by: Duccio Tessari
Written by: Gianfranco Clerici, Duccio Tessari
Actors include: Helmut Berger, Giancarlo Sbragia, Ida Galli
Genre: Horror, Giallo, Mystery, Thriller
Length: 105 minutes
Banned: Nope

Review:
I was surprised how little I liked this, it literally put my Husband and I to sleep three times (so maybe our judgement is effected by the fact that we watched it in 3 pieces over 2 days). Still it was the dullest giallo I've ever seen, all technical chatter about the solving of crimes and then a trial that was excruciating to sit through. The subs on this were extremely small so I felt like I'd read a novel by the end and usually I don't even notice subs. The film also seemed to skip out on the gratuity of other gialli and the colors and humor and violence...all not there. The actors were fine, it was nicely filmed and the scenery was lovely...that is the only good I can think of here. The story is about a girl who turns up murdered, then they go through the nonsense to find who they think is the killer. Then we watch the court trial. Then the story picks up slightly afterwards but it's too little too late by that point. I know this is a well regarded film amongst fans of giallo so you probably don't want to take my opinion on this one.

Availability:  On DVD

Faceless (1987)

4 / 5 Aug '10
Tagline: Come Face To Face With Evil
Directed by: Jesus Franco
Written by: Rene Chateau
Actors include: Helmut Berger, Brigitte Lahaie, Telly Savalas
Genre: Horror
Length: 98 minutes
Banned: Canada

Review:
Well this is a pretty darned entertaining Eurosleaze take on the story Les yeux sans visage [Eyes Without a Face], and really it's probably the best Jesús Franco film I've seen. It's from the late '80s so expect lots of colors, cheesy music and so forth but really they did do a relatively good job of making this straightforward. The plot is about a plastic surgeon who improperly fixed a Woman's face, so she throws acid on the face of his sister, horribly disfiguring her. He feels guilt and wants to give her back her face so along with his creepy Nurse Nathalie (Brigitte Lahaie they kidnap models with the intent of performing a face transplant. It's as gory as heck and actually pretty darned hilarious too, really they did a good job with the effects and everything considering it was likely straight-to-video. It also does have a bunch of people you are likely to recognize in the cast including Anton Diffring and Telly Savalas as an added bonus as well. Recommended for those who like gruesome trash, although it's certainly not the classic the film it's aping is, it's still worthwhile.

Availability:  On DVD