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Halloween Viewing Tips:

Euro Horror for the Beginner

By Bob Ignizio

Every October, the same thing happens.  People who normally avoid horror movies like the plague descend on their nearest video store and rent up all the copies of ‘Evil Dead’, ‘Friday the 13^th’, ‘Halloween’, and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’.  While there’s nothing wrong with these choices, haven’t you all seen these films enough?  This year, why not try something different.  Make it a Euro horror Halloween.  Between 1959 and 1984, European countries (especially Italy) cranked out countless horror films.  Admittedly, a lot of it was cheap and even laughable, but the best of it delivers the goods like only a handful of American fright flicks.

 The European horror film was born in 1956 with ‘I Vampiri’, co-directed by Ricardo Freda and Mario Bava.  ‘Vampiri’ wasn’t much of a hit, but Bava’s first solo feature ‘Black Sunday’ (1959, aka 'The Mask of Satan') was.   A master of both cinematography and special effects, Bava infused his rather simple tale of a witch’s resurrection with the kind of style and atmosphere that would become his trademark.  It also began the career of the first real female horror star, Barbara Steele.  Despite its age, ‘Black Sunday’ still delivers the chills. 

At about the same time Bava was making his mark, France gave us the archetypal mad plastic surgeon film ‘Eyes Without a Face’ (1959).  Although considered shocking at the time of its release, it seems tame by today’s standards.  Soon the European film industry began cranking out similar fare in astounding numbers, including Spanish director Jess Franco’s ‘Awful Dr. Orloff’ (1962).  Pretty much an uncredited remake of ‘Eyes’, Franco’s film featured a more lurid approach to the material and an unabashed sexuality.  After ‘Orloff’, all the pieces were in place for the golden age of European horror.   

Although Franju and Freda each made a few additional contributions to the horror genre, it was Bava who emerged as the true master.  His anthology film ‘Black Sabbath’ (1964), starring Boris Karloff, was another big hit and cemented his reputation.  Having proven his knack for gothic horror, Bava next turned to more contemporary material.  His ‘Blood and Black Lace’ (also 1964) became the template for the film genre known as the giallo.  Giallo is the Italian word for yellow.  In Italy, lurid crime novels were generally released in paperback form with yellow spines, hence the name.  ‘Blood and Black Lace’ featured beautiful girls being dispatched in especially grisly ways, a formula that would be copied countless times.  It also featured a convoluted mystery plot with amoral characters and enough red herrings to open up a fish market. 

By the late sixties, film censorship was loosening up all over the world, and it wasn’t long before explicit erotica became a Euro horror staple.  Directors like our old friend Jess Franco and the French filmmaker Jean Rollin reveled in this new freedom.  Franco’s ‘Succubus’ (1967, aka ‘Necronomicon’) and ‘Vampyros Lesbos’ (1970) as well as Rollin’s ‘The Nude Vampire’ (1969) and ‘Shiver of the Vampires’ (1970) mixed Freudian psychology and a dreamlike narrative with blatant eroticism to get their viewers’ blood pumping.  The storylines are often surreal and incoherent, but the images captured on film by these directors exert an undeniable power.  

Of course it wasn’t just sex that was getting more explicit.  There was also a bloodier breed of horror film best exemplified by the works of director Dario Argento.  Argento came on the scene with his so-called “animal trilogy”; ‘Bird With the Crystal Plumage’ (1970), ‘Cat O Nine Tails’ (1971), and ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’ (1972).  Essentially following the giallo formula, they featured carefully orchestrated graphic murder sequences and stylish camera work.  Before long the European film industry was cranking out all kinds of films with titles like ‘Lizard in a Woman’s Skin’ and ‘Scorpion With Two Tails’. 

Mario Bava was still making films in the seventies, as well.  ‘Twitch of the Death Nerve’ (1971, known by so many alternate titles I won’t even bother to list them) is more or less ‘Friday the 13^th’ with a plot.  If you’ve seen the first two films in the Jason saga, you’ll definitely recognize several of the murder sequences in ‘Twitch’.  Bava followed up with the gothic ‘Baron Blood’ (1972).  ‘Baron Blood’ was fairly typical, but it made money.  In gratitude, the film’s producer gave Mario the go ahead to make any film he wanted.  The result was ‘Lisa and the Devil’ (1975), a masterpiece of surreal horror starring Elke Sommer and Telly Savalas.  ‘Lisa’ keeps the viewer guessing constantly, and even when it’s over you’re not entirely sure what has transpired.  But man, does it have atmosphere.  ‘Lisa’ plays like a real nightmare, and like a nightmare, logic and continuity go out the window. 

In 1975, Dario Argento made his first true masterpiece.  ‘Deep Red’ took the giallo to new heights with its carefully planned set pieces, dizzying camerawork, and driving instrumental rock score by the group Goblin.  Argento teamed up with Goblin again for his follow up, ‘Suspiria’ (1977).  ‘Suspiria’ was Argento’s first overtly supernatural film, and possibly his best film, period.  Its level of intensity and nightmarish horror is, in my opinion, unsurpassed.  But probably the biggest impact Argento would have on Italian horror was not as a director, but as producer of George Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1979). 

Argento’s European cut of ‘Dawn’, known as ‘Zombi’, made huge amounts of money and spawned a ridiculous number of rip-offs, most appallingly bad.  However, the unofficial sequel ‘Zombi 2’ (1980, known in the U.S. as ‘Zombie’) was an inventive exception, and its director Lucio Fulci became something of a master of the ultra gory living dead film.  Fulci followed his ‘Zombi 2’ success with ‘City of the Living Dead’ (1981, U.S. title ‘The Gates of Hell’), a film that features the rewind worthy sequence in which a character vomits forth their entire intestinal tract.  Fulci’s masterpiece, however, was ‘The Beyond’ (1981, aka ‘Seven Doors of Death’), a perfect balance of extreme gore and atmospheric horror. 

By the mid eighties the river of Eurotrash turned into a trickle.  With drive-ins and Times Square grind houses closing, there just wasn’t enough of a market anymore.  Lamberto (son of Mario) Bava’s ‘Demons’ (1985) was probably the last Italian horror film to have any real impact on the international box office.  But I’m only scratching the surface with this article.  Jess Franco alone has made over 150 (!!!) movies. There’s plenty of good trash out there to discover.  Happy hunting and happy Halloween.