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Captivating movie !

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is one of those cases of an intriguing plot being undeserved by slow pacing. They could have at least padded the plodding story with more nudity and violence. Instead your left waiting for something to happen, ultimately leading to an underwhelming ending. Funny how the same director, Umberto Lenzi, could also go in the opposite direction with something like 'Eaten Alive'.

Umberto Lenzi is still playing the old school giallo hand here, which means less stabbing and more psychological games, but that doesn't mean he hasn't found new ways of presenting it. He spends the first hour of the film plunging you into a confusing plot, the explains what you've witnessed, then turns everything on its head again. Nice!Christian (Robert Hoffman) is out at the beach with lady friend when he spots a corpse lying on the sand. The corpse turns out to be very much alive Barbara (Kendall) whom Christian becomes infatuated with. She runs off, leaving a thermos (!) with a strange name on it. This leads Christian to a boat where he meets Barbara again, and the two of them head off to a motel for some filthy squeazy, as long as Christian shaves off his beard. Of course, some strange man turns up in the bathroom and tries to kill him, resulting in one dead stranger. This happens in 75% of all one night stands.Things go from bad to worse for Christian as he ends up in a never ending nightmare of people who may or may not who they say they are, dead strangers who come back to life, empty houses and their occupants, and the constant shots of mannequins dressed in sexy lingerie that have been stabbed with blades. Lenzi piles on the paranoia and the mysteries but doesn't lose focus, bringing it all together nicely (even if the twists are a bit cliché by this point). Still, despite saying "Oh! It's that kind of plot twist!" Lenzi still has a couple of curveballs, one particularly grim and shocking. Lenzi keeps things nice and trippy for the most part too, as certain characters turn up as different people, and even what we've watched up to a point may not be the whole truth. The disturbing sight of sexualised dummies, which seems to have been switched with the real thing on purpose, just adds to the disorientation. The only downside is that some of the acting is a bit iffy. I'm looking at you, Kendall! Ivan Rassimov was fine though.What people might have a bit of trouble with is home film that Rassimov watches in his office. It has all the zooms, focus shifts and edits of a professional film. When I think about it, I wonder if that was deliberate too...possibly.

***SPOILERS**** "Spamso" starts rather innocently with Chris Bauman, Robert Hoffmann,helping out this woman that's fully clad Barbara, Suzy Kendell, who passed out on the beach from sunstroke who suddenly runs or drives out on him. Leaving a clue to where she is going to "Tucania" a large yacht down by the bay he meets her and fall heads over heels for Barbara who-Can you blame him- has a striking resemblance to the future and later fatal British Princes Diana. Staying at a local motel and ready to jump into action or under the covers Chris is told by Barbara to shave off his saggy beard before she has anything to do with him. Which leads to him being attacked in the bathroom-while shaving off his beard-by this hit-man Tatum, Adolfo Lastretti, who's always seen playing with his steel balls, like the crazed captain in the film the "Cain Mutiny", who after a life & death straggle Chris kills Tatum with his own gun.The rest of the film has Chris as well as Barbara on the run from who knows who since it's discovered that Tatum survived being shot or even more strange that he never existed since only Chris, not the local police or even Barbara, can prove that he killed him-in self defense- and has absolutely no proof of doing it! With all the running that Chris as well as Barbara are doing in the movie from what seems like invisible forces they encounter in Barbara's artist friends villa where their chilling out this couple Malclom & the zombie like Clorinda, Guido Alberti & Monica Monet, who claim that they rented the place and threaten to call the police to get the two evicted and arrested for trespassing!***SPOILERS*** This entire mess of a movie boils down to Chris' past when he was a young boy who together with his older brother Fritz,Ivan Rassimov, attended their father's, Tom Felleghy, funeral that Malcolm covered as a newspaper reporter. It's Malcolm who always felt that it was Chris who murdered his father and has been secretly following him ever since to prove his point so this encounter with him at the villa wasn't an accident! What later come out is that Tatum as well as Barbara are actually working for Chris's brother Fritz who wants to have him hospitalized in a mental institution before he does any damage to himself or anyone else. And that plan by Fritz soon backfires with Chris, in a long flashback sequence,ends up murdering some dozen women including Barbara before he's stopped and gunned down by the police! As for Fritz the "Good" son he soon realizes that he's just as crazy as his late brother Chris since they share, from their equally insane and homicidal dad, the same genes or personalities!

Over the last two weeks,I have started to develop an interest into looking for murky,hard-bitten film Noirs.When a friend asked me if I could help him to order some films,one of the first ones that he went for was this.After having brought the film,I went looking round on sites to read about it,and I discovered that it was being under a genre that I have not heard about before called "Giallo".As I started to read up more about the genre,my eagerness to view a Giallo film highly increased.Luckaly for me,my friend kindly gave me the chance to watch the film. The plot:During a relaxed scroll on the beach,a couple (named Christian and Clayen) spot a girl laying face-down dead at the side of the beach.As they get closer,they realise that the girl is thankfully alive.As Christian helps the girl (Barbara) up,he takes his attention off her for a moment,and in almost an instant,she has disappeared!,and possibly is even driving away.Determined to not let this event fade away Christian looks round the area of the beach that Barbara was at,and he finds a flask that has the name of a ship that is in a near by boat yard.From the moment that he finds the flask,Christian starts a one man mission into finding the girl.When he arrives at the boat yard,he finds out that there is a party on the boat,and although the party host first refuses him access to the party,Christian is able to push himself into the party,where he at last finds Barbara.Due to being completely enchanted to her,Christian instantly accepts her invitation of him going round to her place.And whilst the night starts off well enough,when Christian goes to the bath room,he discovers that there is a hit man there,waiting to kill him.As he battles it out with the hit man,Christian ends up shooting him.With both of them fearing that they will end up in jail over the murder (although when Christian goes to look back at the murder scene,the body has oddly "disappeared")Barbara suggestes that they stay at a lavish empty country house that a friend of hers has lived at.When they get inside the house,they find out that it is actually being rented out by two tenets,who tell them that they are fine with both of them living in the place as well.Although as there time in the house grows,Christian starts to think that the tenets,and maybe even Barbara seem to be acting very strangely.And although Christian thinks that it may have something to do with the hit-man,he does not realise that he is far more involved in the disturbing going ons on the island,then he could ever imagine.. View on the film:Although the score does not have a strong metallic tone that he would become legendary for,the score by Ennio Morricone is still very engaging.With my favourite track being the one used in the opening credits,which features a light jazz sound,and a Spanish guitar having excellent ghostly voices whispering over the track,which creates a very haunting feel. For this being my first ever Giallo film,I feel that writer-director Umberto Lenzi has made a film that welcomes me with open arms to the genre.With the screenplay,Lenzi (who wrote the screenplay with four other people) does very well at making the film a very atmospheric paranoid mystreey film,with a film noir undertone that becomes more noticeable as the story progresses.And whilst I feel that the girlfriend at the start of the film could have been used a little bit more,the film is that jammed packed with other deeply engrossing plot elements that it is very easy to overlook this.With Umbertos directing matching the terrific frantic feel of the story. (which includes someone "murdering" plastic dolls,a gradual mental breakdown and the last fifteen minutes of the film,which are extremely gripping,although they completely turn the film upside down,in a way that rewards repeated viewings.)Lenzi also does lots of excellent shots,with the section of the film where Christian starts to think that everyone around him seem to be hiding something from him,being shown with some very fast-edited close ups of the things that are making the character very nervous.Final view on the film: A fantastic Giallo-Noir mystreey film,with excellent writing and some very clever directing by Umberto Lenzi.