The Prince of Terror/Il maestro del terrore

Italy, 1989

Directed by Lamberto Bava

Cast:
Tomas Arana, David Brandon, Carole André, Ulisse Minervini, Joyce Pitti, Marina Viro, Pascal Druant, Virginia Bryant, Augusto Poderosi

Italian horror films from the late 1980s are generally not held in very high esteem – being frequently dismissed as the last, uninspired death throes of this once blossoming genre. And, indeed, some pretty lousy Italian horror films were churned out in this period but others again were surprisingly good. What is most surprising, however, is perhaps the sheer volume of Italian horror film being produced between 1987 and 1989. The Italian film industry was in increasingly bad shape at this point, and yet producers kept green lighting one flashy-looking, special effects laden horror flick after the other. Presumably, one of the reasons for this was the growing emergence of fanzines covering Italian horror movies. All of a sudden directors like Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci were starting to be recognized for their style and talent. This rising interest in Italian horror also caught the attention of the filmmakers themselves, who soon decided to take advantage of their newfound appreciation. For example, Fulci lent his name to a series of cheap and gory horror films, which were released under the moniker “Lucio Fulci presents”.

Unfortunately, this new Italian horror boom would prove to be short-lived but it did produce a number of interesting films. One of the more intriguing aspects to some of the horror films from this period is a new sense of playfulness and self-referentiality: in Andrea Bianchi’s Massacre (1989), the cast of a cheap horror movie are being murdered one by one; in Luigi Cozzi’s The Black Cat (1989), a famous horror movie director unleashes an evil witch when he attempts to make the third installment in Dario Argento’s then-unfinished trilogy of ‘The Three Mothers’; and in Lucio Fulci’s A Cat in the Brain (1990), Fulci stars as himself – a horror movie director being haunted by visions inspired by his own gory films.

Made in the same self-referential spirit as those films is Lamberto Bava’s The Prince of Terror, one of the four TV horror movies helmed by Bava under the moniker High Tension, of which I have previously covered School of Fear and The Man Who Didn't Want to Die. The film begins on a foggy night. An attractive young woman (Marina Viro – dubbed by the ever-present Carolynn De Fonseca) is sleeping in an RV camped in the woods when she is suddenly awoken. She is worried because she can’t find her boyfriend so she steps out – wearing nothing but her nightie – to look for him. To her horror she finds him dead, and worse yet, the corpse turns into a bloated zombie creature right in front of her eyes. The zombie-boyfriend is quick on his feet, though, and starts chasing his terrified girlfriend through the woods!

Zombie mayhem!

But then suddenly we hear someone yell “Cut!” and it turns out that we have just witnessed the shooting of the latest film by Vincent Omen (Tomas Arana), a famed horror movie director who has been nicknamed the ‘Prince of Terror’ by the press.

The Prince of Terror at ease in the director’s chair

But Vincent is not at all happy with how the film is coming along. He finds the screenplay to be ridiculous and demands that it be re-written – much to the chagrin of his long-time script writer Paul Hillary (David Brandon), who refuses to make any changes. Vincent, however, will not budge, and gives the film’s producer (Pascal Druant) an ultimatum: either he finds a new screenwriter or Vincent will abandon the whole project. Under such circumstances, the producer has no choice but to oblige, and a bitter Paul finds himself out of a job.

Writer and director clash on the set

Off set, Vincent lives in a fancy villa adorned with creepy props from his films, but for the most part he leads a pretty quiet and normal life together with his beautiful wife Betty (Carole André) and their young teenage daughter Susan (Joyce Pitti), who always carries her pet dog Demon (!) around.

The Prince of Terror enjoys a tender moment with his charming wife

Vincent’s daughter with her pet dog

All is not well, however, as Vincent is receiving some creepy anonymous phone calls, and soon disturbing things are happening such as the toilet overflowing with blood!

That bloody toilet!

But that’s just the beginning. Things take a turn for the worse when poor Susan goes to pick up her dog from the sofa but to her horror she pulls its skin off – leaving a flayed, gory carcass on the sofa.

Demon the Dog meets a grisly end in this cheesy yet delightfully vicious scene

The shocked family put the dead dog in the garbage can but soon afterwards someone throws it back through the window and then the power goes out. Vincent decides to search through the premises, but in the meantime the mysterious tormentor breaks into the house and takes both Betty and Susan captive. The culprit is revealed to be Eddie Felsen (Ulisse Minervini – dubbed by the great Ted Rusoff), a former actor who used to work for Vincent until his face was badly burned in a fire on a movie set. The now deranged Eddie blames Vincent for the accident and intends to make him and his family suffer. However, he has not been alone in setting up this brutal home invasion. No, the real mastermind behind the plot is Paul, the jilted screenwriter, who quickly reveals himself as a sadistic maniac who will stop at nothing to get his long-awaited revenge on Vincent.

The terrified family try their best to fight their captors and escape from the villa but Paul is always one step ahead of them. He continues to torment them in various cruel ways, and in a clever twist, all of the sadistic tricks he pulls off are actually based on old, unused script ideas which were axed by Vincent. Paul is eager to prove to that his ideas are much more effective and terrifying than they were given credit for, and Vincent and his poor family are going to experience it first-hand...

The Omens experience a night of terror

The Prince of Terror was written by the well-known horror movie writer Dardano Sacchetti, who is fondly remembered for his long and fruitful collaboration with Lucio Fulci. Sacchetti wrote Zombie (1979), City of the Living Dead (1980), The House by the Cemetery (1981), The Beyond (1981), The New York Ripper (1982) and Manhattan Baby (1982) for Fulci but their working relationship eventually soured and ended rather bitterly. Clearly, Sacchetti’s difficult relationship with Fulci formed the inspiration for the film’s story, and it’s difficult to not view The Prince of Terror as a critique of how many directors unfairly take all the credit for a film’s success. With that said, the extreme behavior exhibited by the film’s vengeful screenwriter character suggests that Sacchetti’s criticism is not meant to be taken too seriously. In fact he manages to keep it fairly tongue in cheek, and throws in some amusingly witty dialogue exchanges where Paul and Vincent debate what constitutes a good horror movie. One of the highlights is their argument at the start of the film where Vincent accuses Paul’s script of ripping off Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955), to which an indignant Paul replies that “It’s a tribute! It’s not a rip-off!”

But in spite of Sacchetti’s clever and self-referential script, The Prince of Terror is not without its share of problems, the worst of which is Vincent’s daughter Susan. Based on how she talks and behaves I suppose she is meant to be about 13 years old, but based on how she actually looks I’d say she’s in her late 20s at the very least. Obviously, this poses somewhat of a problem, and it’s impossible to take the character seriously. Her constant shrieking is extremely annoying and the only consolation is the fact that she does get subjected to a lot of hideous things throughout the film.

This chick will get on your nerves. Trust me!

Of course, it is the imaginatively sadistic and seemingly never-ending terrorization of the Omen family which is the real heart and soul of the film, and it is here that The Prince of Terror really shines. Unfortunately, it takes a little too long to get there. After the promising opening act, the film slows down its pace and treats us to a needlessly long scene where Vincent is being interviewed by a female reporter (played by American actress and Bava regular Virginia Bryant) at a golf course, and a tedious dinner party where the Omens have invited the producer and an airheaded and very annoying bimbo actress (the one we saw being menaced in the opening scene), who babbles on about how horror movies turn her on.

Furthermore, the early stages of the terrorization – where we don’t know who is tormenting the Omen family – fall a bit flat. There are simply too many boring scenes where Vincent and Betty are arguing about what they are going to do, not to mention a needlessly long sequence in which Vincent searches through the house while Philip Boswell’s droning score plays on and on. The root of these problems lies in the fact that the film’s concept has been stretched a bit thin. It would probably have run much more smoothly and effectively as a one hour feature – something which is actually true of all of the four High Tension movies.

But, fortunately, once the tormentors make themselves known the film starts to come alive and, boy, does it get lively in its second half! Dardano Sacchetti’s script just keeps bombarding us with crazy, unexpected twists and show-stopping gory mayhem courtesy of special effects genius Sergio Stivaletti. The skinned dog is a definite highlight but the film continues to smack us in the face with one jaw-dropping over-the-top-moment after another – throwing in chainsaws, bear traps, rape, a robot, people being walled up alive, and killer golf balls that knock out people’s eyeballs! It’s all capped off with a very bizarre ending, and while it will probably leave you scratching your head it’s a perfect conclusion to the preceding 90 minutes of frenzied home invasion terror and supernatural horror.

Plenty of over the top craziness

A bit of Fulci-style eyeball violence

The biggest highlight by far, however, is the brilliant British actor David Brandon and his amazing, no-holds-barred performance as the deranged and vindictive screenwriter who never runs out of sadistic tricks to play on the Omens. Yes, he’s over the top but considering how the plot itself escalates into total craziness, Brandon’s delightful scenery-chewing is actually very much appropriate. He practically saves the film by breathing so much life and energy into the proceedings, and he is clearly having a great time. Thankfully, Brandon’s own voice is retained in the English version, and his performance is all the better for it, so do try to catch this in English if you can.

David Brandon in top form

The rest of the actors are inevitably overshadowed by Brandon but they put in some good work – especially Ulisse Minervini, who is hysterically sleazy and disgusting as Brandon’s partner in crime. By contrast, American actor Tomas Arana’s performance as the titular prince of terror comes across as rather subdued but it works fine that way. The beautiful Carole André has little to do as Arana’s wife except act terrified but she does so convincingly.

While not in the same league as Bava’s best films, The Prince of Terror is nevertheless among his most successful TV movies, with a clever script and some terrific work by David Brandon. As long as you can stick it out through the rather rocky start you’ll be in for a wild and enjoyable ride.

© 2013 Johan Melle

The cast:

Tomas Arana as Vincent Omen

David Brandon as Paul Hillary

Carole André as Betty Omen

Ulisse Minervini as Eddie Felsen

Joyce Pitti as Susan Omen

Marina Viro as Magda, the actress

Pascal Druant as Philip Moses, the producer

Virginia Bryant as The Reporter

Augusto Poderosi as The Security Guard

Man Who Didn't Want to Die/L’uomo che non voleva morire

Italy, 1989

Directed by Lamberto Bava

Cast:
Keith Van Hoven, Gino Concari, Martine Brochard, Lino Salemme, Stefano Molinari, Igor Zalewsky, Raffaella La Vecchia, Peter Pitsch, Jacques Sernas


Having been positively surprised by School of Fear (1989), one of the four TV movie thrillers Lamberto Bava directed under the series title High Tension, I decided to check out the remaining three films in this series, and finally sat down with The Man Who Didn’t Want to Die. This film is based on a short story by Giorgio Scerbanenco, a fairly well-known Italian writer who penned the novels on which the hard-hitting Fernando Di Leo crime films Calibre 9 (1972) and Manhunt (1972) are based. This project must have been somewhat special to Lamberto Bava because his father, the great Mario Bava, had once planned on filming this story himself. According to Tim Lucas’ extensive tome Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, Bava Senior had been impressed by Scerbanenco’s short story and meant to make a film out of it in 1972. He got as far as to write a screenplay together with Rafael Azcona and Alessandro Parenzo but the project was put on hold when Bava began to work on Lisa and the Devil (1973) and he didn’t get around to digging up the project again before his untimely death in 1980.

Surprisingly for a Lamberto Bava film – but in keeping with Scerbanenco’s writings – The Man Who Didn’t Want to Die actually plays out more like a cynical crime film than a horror movie. The plot concerns the greedy and unscrupulous art dealer Madame Janaud (Martine Brochard – dubbed by Carolynn De Fonseca), whose primary method for acquiring invaluable art pieces is to hire a gang of brutish thugs to break into the homes of private collectors and steal their art. In charge of these brutal operations is the handsome Fabrizio (Keith Van Hoven – dubbed by Ted Rusoff), who we see forcing his way into a fancy villa together with his four goons at the start of the film. The gang gag and tie up the villa’s only occupants – a caretaker and his sexy wife – before proceeding to strip the place bare of expensive art objects. The most precious piece is the Renoir painting “After the Bath”, which Madame Janaud is eager to get her hands on so she can sell it for a hefty price to obsessive art collector Mr. Miraz (Jacques Sernas – dubbed by Ken Belton).


Brutal break-in


The ruthless Madame Janaud


The coveted Renoir painting that sets all the drama in motion


But, alas, things don’t turn out as planned. While all of Fabrizio’s men are low-life punks, there is one particularly loathsome and disgusting character named Giannetto (Gino Concari) who decides to double-cross the rest of the group. While packing the stolen goods into their van, Giannetto uses a knife to carve the Renoir painting from its frame and then hides it in the garage – planning on returning for it later. This sounds like an awful plan as the place will surely be crawling with cops by then but presumably Giannetto just isn’t particularly bright.



Giannetto double-crosses his group


But Giannetto isn’t just stupid - he’s also a complete creep who can’t keep his hands off the caretaker’s terrified wife, who lies bound and gagged in the kitchen. Giannetto rips off the defenseless woman’s clothes and begins to rape her while her tied-up husband is forced to watch.




Giannetto gets nasty


Incredibly, the tied-up husband manages to crawl over to them and save his wife by kicking Giannetto in the head – fatally wounding him! Alerted by all the noise, Fabrizio and the others rush to the kitchen and are stunned when they find Giannetto dying on the floor, and quite frankly, so am I as the badly choreographed kick to the head looked anything but fatal. Anyway, an annoyed Fabrizio shoots and kills the poor caretaker and his half-naked wife, and the goons wrap the dying Giannetto in a carpet, put him in their van and drive off. Since they cannot risk taking their wounded partner to the hospital, Fabrizio wants to kill him but some of the others disagree and they start arguing about what to do. In the end, they decide to strip Giannetto naked, dump him in the woods and leave him for dead.



Giannetto is dumped and left for dead


But, naturally, Giannetto – in keeping with the film’s title – does not want to die and he somehow makes it till the next morning when he is found and taken to a hospital. Miraculously recovering from his injuries, he swears to get back at the ones who have wronged him and it doesn’t take long before everyone connected to the robbery start being brutally murdered by a giallo-esque killer dressed in black...


The man who didn’t want to die makes a miraculous recovery at the hospital



The black-clad killer claims his first victim


The idea of Lamberto Bava making a film from a story that his own father had once planned to adapt is intriguing and one really wishes it had turned into an enjoyable film. But, regrettably, that is not the case. In fact, very little works in The Man Who Didn’t Want to Die – least of all the story, which largely relies on the audience sympathizing with Giannetto. Since Giannetto is such an irredeemably vile character who doesn’t think twice about raping a poor defenseless woman, it’s practically impossible to care about what happens to him. Nevertheless, the film insists on throwing in several sequences where the suspense rests solely on whether or not Giannetto will pull through, and these attempts at creating tension fall completely flat.

In Tim Lucas’ aforementioned Bava book, Lamberto is quoted with saying that he took the unfilmed script his father had written together with Rafael Azcona and Alessandro Parenzo, and made this film. However, the only writer to receive any onscreen credit is Gianfranco Clerici, who is known for co-writing such notable films as The New York Ripper (1982) and Formula for a Murder (1985), and hence it seems reasonable to assume that Clerici and Bava Junior made some changes to the old script. Nevertheless, the Bava book includes a plot summary of Scerbanenco’s original short story and this description does not differ from the plot of the finished film in any significant way, so it appears that Clerici stayed fairly faithful to the original story and script. However, I am willing to bet that if Bava Senior had made this film, he would not have tried to get the audience to sympathize with the Giannetto character. Why would he? What makes the story interesting are not the unlikable characters but rather the way in which their cynicism and greediness lead to their downfall. This point appears to be lost on Clerici and Bava Junior, and their decision to turn Giannetto into some kind of hero is seriously misguided. Furthermore, their attempts to make Giannetto sympathetic fail epically because his abrupt transformation from filthy rapist to sad, puppy-eyed man done wrong is laughably unconvincing. And it doesn’t exactly help that Giannetto is played by Gino Concari, a really terrible actor who also starred in Andrea Bianchi’s miserably bad Massacre (1989) around the same time. Concari’s idea of projecting rage is to constantly grit his teeth while making big, wild eyes like he’s channeling Lou Ferrigno as the Incredible Hulk.


OK, we get it! Giannetto is dangerous!


With the exception of Giannetto’s girlfriend Vittoria (played by Raffaella La Vecchia), all of the other characters are equally unlikable. That isn’t a problem in itself as unsympathetic characters can work perfectly well as long as they are interesting. But, alas, they are all complete cardboard cutouts who show no discernible traces of personalities.

To make matters worse, Lamberto Bava’s direction is pretty ham-fisted and uninspired. The sequence where the goons escape in their van is incredibly drawn-out and lacking in suspense, and there are numerous sequences where the camera slowly pans across completely uneventful images while Simon Boswell’s nice but repetitive score plays on and on. It’s almost as if Bava had no interest in the film, which can’t be right since it was obviously important to him to realize the project that his father never got to do and that makes the dire end result all the more disappointing.

It isn’t until well over an hour into the proceedings that the thugs finally start to get bumped off in various gruesome ways – with one character being shot repeatedly in the face with a nail gun, and another getting his head squashed like a pancake. While neither of these moments are as gory as they may sound, they do at least manage to animate the film somewhat. The only stand-out kill scene, however, is when an unlucky guy is dispatched by having his head repeatedly smashed against a toilet and then getting his bleeding face shoved down the toilet bowl till he drowns – something which is actually filmed from the toilet’s point of view. It’s quite a hideous and uncomfortable sight but it’s well executed and the toilet point of view shots are pretty stylish.


Nail gun massacre



Death by toilet!


Playing the leading role of Fabrizio is actor Keith Van Hoven, who was born in England to a Scottish mother and a Dutch father. Van Hoven started out as a fashion model and this brought him to Italy, where he found some success as an actor. His biggest success was a starring role opposite popular actress Federica Moro in the comedy TV series College (1989) but Van Hoven also landed leads in a couple of horror films such as Lucio Fulci’s The House of Clocks (1989), Umberto Lenzi’s Black Demons (1991) and of course this film. He is very handsome but, sadly, he is also pretty inexpressive and hence he fails to make much of an impression. The supporting cast is largely made up of people who are familiar from various other Bava movies. Two of Fabrizio’s thugs are played by Lino Salemme and Stefano Molinari. Sinister-looking Salemme should be familiar for his parts as one of the punk kids in Demons (1985) and as the creepy tavern-keeper in Graveyard Disturbance (1987), while Molinari played the ugly demon in the movie being shown on TV in Demons 2 (1986). There’s also Madame Janaud’s efficient henchman Britz, played by German actor Peter Pitsch, who also played one of the punks in Demons and was a dead serial killer in You’ll Die at Midnight (1986). While none of these guys really get to shine, they all have the perfect look for the parts they’re playing and it’s nice to have some familiar faces around.

The only big names in the cast are Martine Brochard and Jacques Sernas – two excellent French actors with an impressive list of credits in Italian genre cinema – but neither of them are used to their fullest potential here. Sernas in particular is wasted in what is basically a glorified cameo. Brochard fares better in that she gets a fair amount of screen time (though hardly enough to justify her prominent top-billing) and she acquits herself nicely as the greedy Madame Janaud. She probably didn’t put too much effort into her performance but she gets away with it and she looks great!


Old pros Jacques Sernas and Martine Brochard infuse the film with some much needed elegance and professionalism


It’s a real shame that The Man Who Didn’t Want to Die turned out as badly as it did because this extremely cynical tale had the potential for turning into a really hard-hitting crime/horror film. It would have been interesting to see what Mario Bava could have made of the material but in the hands of his son this sadly turned into an incompetent mess that isn’t worthy of anyone’s time or attention! I really regret having to say so because it’s obvious that Lamberto’s intentions were noble, and he is capable of delivering much better work.



© 2012 Johan Melle



The cast:


Keith Van Hoven as Fabrizio


Gino Concari as Fabrizio


Martine Brochard as Madame Janaud


Lino Salemme as Tito


Stefano Molinari as Berto


Igor Zalewsky as Luigi


Raffaella La Vecchia as Vittoria


Peter Pitsch as Britz

Jacques Sernas as Mr. Miraz