If there was a Hall Of Fame for demon transformations, then Carmen from 1985’s Italian gore-galore classic Demons would have been inducted a looooong time ago.
So, on this week’s Sunday Bloody Sunday it’s a must that I pay homage to Carmen’s transformation and I’m even going to throw in a spiffy throat ripping at the end as a bonus! When it comes to my love for Demons, there are many highlights (samurai sword demon killing on a motorcycle, anybody?) but I have to tip my cap to the glorious practical effects on display in this particular scene courtesy of the great Sergio Stivaletti. Watch and learn youngsters, and please enjoy that lovely demon tongue of Carmen’s as well……..
Movies with two names kind of annoy me. But so is usually the case when we’re talking about the Italian horror genre. No matter if you want to call Dario Argento’s 1985 psychic/insect movie Creepers or Phenomena, it has one of the best posters EVER!
Now for whatever reason, there is a version of this poster that isn’t exposing Jennifer Connelly’s half-decaying bug face, but clearly the un-edited version is the keeper here. The image above is actually an ad for the promotion of the VHS version of Creepers, but the tagline on the original poster is “It Will Make Your Skin Crawl“. Fitting, considering there are a bunch of bugs flying around that could actually make your skin crawl.
I have to confess that I haven’t seen this movie in years. And after looking at this poster again, I definitely need to revisit it. Not only does it have the late great Donald Pleasence in it, but how the fuck can you go wrong with a movie that has Iron Maiden and Motorhead on the soundtrack? Another thing that this poster is making me realize is that we need more horror movies about bugs. Whether it’s spiders, cockroaches, or maybe a random remake of 1988’s movie about killer slugs appropriately titled Slugs – everyone can relate to bugs! Get on that Hollywood. Until then, it’s off to Amazon to purchase Creepers or Phenomena or whatever the hell you want to call it.
*WARNING: The clip that you’re about to watch in this post contains an extremely unrealistic chopping off of an arm by an axe. You’ve been warned*
God bless Dario Argento. Why the hell doesn’t he make good movies anymore though? That’s a question that could take a while to find an answer to, so lets focus on some of his better work from days past to take our minds off of that.
On this week’s Sunday Bloody Sunday it’s about to get all giallo red up in here, because I’m highlighting one of the best and most ridiculous death scenes from Argento’s 1982 slasher: Tenebre. If you haven’t seen the movie, then I’m about to spoil the fact that the character of Jane is about to be hacked up by an axe murderer. But before she’s done for good, she’s going to decide to paint the beautiful white walls in her house bright red! I heard that she did always have dreams of becoming an interior designer.
Recently, I finally sat down and watched the 1987 Italian slasher flick, Stage Fright. And overall, it pretty much lived up to all of the expectations I had about a horror movie with a killer wearing a giant furry owl head when stalking his brain-challenged victims.
Now let’s talk axes for a minute. I really had to refrain from throwing in a ‘axe to grind’ pun by the way. But anyway, towards the end of Stage Fright, our final girl Alice (Barbara Cupisti) is on the run from our killer owl and ends up in the rafters above the stage. After knocking him down, to where he latches on to cable and tries to climb back up, she grabs his axe and starts to go to work on that cable to knock him down:
Ok. I realize that the particular axe that Alice was swinging had recently been used to chop off someone’s head. So maybe….just maybe, that activity dulled it a little to where she couldn’t cut through that cable with less than 20 attempts. That’s right. If you played along at home while watching the video and counted, it took 20 swings of that sharp axe to get through that cable and drop owl face like a sack of potatoes to the ground.
I’m sorry, but I can’t even use the whole “Oh, she’s a girl so she’s not as strong” defense on this one, because it’s an AXE. They use these to cut down trees for God’s sake! After the seventh attempt, the credits should have been rolling and Alice should have been enjoying a tasty beverage somewhere. So because of that, I have to award the axe in Stage Fright as the Worst Axe In A Horror Movie Ever! Somewhere, Paul Bunyan is sobbing.
