By Robert Barber

I think there must be few people working in the Fantasy and Horror genres today who love them as much as the late Paul Naschy, most famous for portraying accursed werewolf superstud Waldemar Daninsky. A barrel-chested ex-champion weightlifter, Naschy manages to get his shirt off in most of the films he made, often for the purpose of being whipped and/or chained and/or being stroked and caressed by the long painted nails of some libidinous Euro-slut/actress. Of course Naschy almost always gets to shag his leading ladies, but such was the privilege of a screenwriter/star and sometime director who dominated his particular milieu during the late ‘60s, through the ‘70s and into the 1980’s.

Not only the best Spanish genre-actor to emerge from this era, but one of its best writers and directors too, Naschy was a remarkable star on par with other “Greats” of the time: Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, Meiko Kaji, Soledad Miranda, and Coffin Joe. Nonetheless, his on-screen presence is often compared to that of Lon Chaney, both Sr. and son. If you imagine a shorter, but still very thick, Lon Chaney Jr. speaking Spanish with the talent, charisma and aplomb of his father, Lon Chaney Sr., you’re beginning to grasp the appeal of Paul Naschy. I’ve always thought of him as a sort-of Latin Bob Hoskins. Read More…

20 Must-see Italian Horror films (1957-1987)

A four part article by Robert Barber

PART FOUR (1980 – 1987)

Anthropophagus (1980) – dir. Joe D’Amato

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If you grew up in the 1980’s, obsessed (like me) with the magazines “Fangoria”, “Psychotronic”, and “Cinefantastique” then the term ‘Video Nasty’ may have held a sort of dark reverence. Coined in the UK after the passing of their government’s 1984 Video Recordings Act, ‘Video Nasty’ came to refer to all those movies that either had cuts forced upon them before release or (in the best cases) were simply banned outright. A list was generated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) of all the films deemed nasty, thereby single-handedly creating a must-see archive of which dreams are made for all the shock-loving young ones. One of the most infamous of these titles was Joe D’Amato’s Anthropophagus, aka The Grim Reaper, Man Eater, The Zombie’s Rage, ad nauseam.

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20 Must-see Italian Horror films (1957-1987)

A four part article by Robert Barber

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PART THREE (1972-1979)

Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) – dir. Lucio Fulci

Don’t torture a what? I know, I thought the same thing when I first saw the title. But thanks to the phenomenal success of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, almost every giallo released in Bird’s wake had an animal in its name – The Cat o’ Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Tail of the Scorpion, Black Belly of the Tarantula, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye, ad infinitum. I suppose one could wax philosophic about the use of animals as reflections of the giallo’s cold brutality, man being just another animal himself, ‘man as meat’, etc., but in truth many of these titles were unessential to the film’s plot, and simply attempts to jump on the commercial bandwagon pushed into motion by Bird.

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20 Must-see Italian Horror films (1957-1987)

A four part article by Robert Barber

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PART TWO (1964 – 1971)

Blood & Black Lace (1964) – dir. Mario Bava

So where, one may wonder, did all those ‘70s and ’80s body-count/slasher movies originate? With film still being such a young art form, it’s relatively easy to find the answers to such ontological questions. Halloween, Black Christmas, Friday the 13th, ad infinitum, all owe their red-dye-24 stained DNA to Mario Bava’s Blood & Black Lace.

Fresh off the phantas-orgasmical and sadomasochistic lash-fest Whip and the Body (which in some circles is considered the maestro’s best, but not here), Bava teamed up again with Black Sabbath screenwriter Marcello Fondato to unwittingly create this nascent, neon nightmare of masked, black-leather clad serial killers, open razors, variously vicious and inventive tortures, and lots of ripped stockings and torn lingerie.

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20 Must-see Italian Horror films (1957-1987)

A four part article by Robert Barber

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Italian Horror – to some of you horror fans reading this, it’s a genre you’ve been leery about investigating. Those who swear by it say it’s the best school of cinematic scares that’s ever been. But there’s just so much of it out there, right? Where does one start?

What you have to remember when watching most, if not all Italian Horror is not to let yourself be distracted or disappointment by many things we Americans often take too seriously when watching movies. We have a penchant for throwing the baby out with the bathwater (an image not too far from some Italian Horror films oddly enough), placing far too much importance on the logical coherence of a story – one part doesn’t mesh or work with the rest and the whole movie falls apart, right?

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