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Truly Dreadful Film

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Of Bava Jr.'s vintage movie work, I am only familiar with popular-but-despicable DEMONS (1985) and the so-so Giallo DELIRIUM (1987). Apart from these, I have watched the fine period chiller THE VENUS OF ILLE (1978; TV) – on which he actually only served as co-director with his father, the late great Mario Bava – and the more recent offering THE TORTURER (2005), about which, the less said the better. When financing of genre efforts for the cinema seemed to slacken towards the end of the 1980s, he turned his attentions to TV with a quartet of titles which, to this day, turn up from time to time on late-night Italian TV. Since I had the two more highly-regarded outings at arm's reach (the others lie amid a multitude of VHS recordings – incidentally, the film under review was itself a VHS-to-DVD conversion which resulted in brief intermittent instances of jittering image!), I decided to include them in the current "Halloween Challenge". By the way, there are differing opinions as to the order in which these were made but, given that I was watching the two pictures quite late at night, I opted to go first with the one which is the best-rated (at least on the now apparently extinct website "Cult Filmz").Anyway, the film's theme of possession by the dead and overall somber tone owes quite a bit to Mario's own last picture for the cinema, the just-average SHOCK aka BEYOND THE DOOR II (1977) and is actually superior to it! The subplot, then, of the sultry co-owner of a diner conspiring with a handsome man (David Brandon, from Michele Soavi's recently-viewed STAGE FRIGHT {1986}) to dispose of her husband seems to derive from that Noir staple THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946)! The catch, however, is that the deceased has somehow inhabited the body of an even younger and more attractive man but, rather than have history repeat itself, Bava makes the latter's quiet presence instill tension between the two murderers, which naturally leas to more bloodshed. The film's horror actually emanates from the first husband's ghoulish apparitions (in dreams) to the son he never knew, which keep the boy from sleeping and thus getting on his surrogate dad's nerves – on the other hand, the new recruit (who literally seems to have come out of nowhere and was asked by the leading lady to stay as if it were the most natural thing in the world!) shows affection to the kid, even repairing a swing Brandon had long promising to but never bothered with. Later, however, he also torments the woman as, finally seducing the young stranger, he turns into the rotting figure of her husband (with, at one point, his face weirdly appearing as an amalgam of the two men's respective visage)! Some of the film's more entertaining passages are devoted to the violent relationship between the woman (the stunning Gioia Scola) and Brandon, which sees both hurling insults at each other (the hard-boiled dialogue being one more nod to the Noir genre) and beating one another to a pulp, inevitably resulting in Brandon's demise, and which would leave Scola at the mercy of Husband No. 1. However, typically, the latter gradually loses his sense of reason and does not spare the child from his attacks – culminating in the house adjoining the diner being set on fire and the young man's own death, while the woman and her son manage to survive the ordeal. The English moniker is actually a subtitle to the Italian original, which translates to FOR EVER (though it was also inexplicably known in some quarters as THE CHANGELING 2!), which are the words ironically inscribed on the wedding ring of Scola and the husband she soon grew tired of! All in all, I would venture to say that this is Bava-son's most considerable work which, while pretty good taken on its merits, admittedly shows little of the stimulating artistic flair which made his father's name at the time and which has kept his oeuvre in the public eye.

I have this on VHS as Changeling 2, obviously it's another of those Italian films advertised as a sequel that isn't really a sequel. It's interesting to see one of the actors from Stage Fright in this, and there are a few good moments, but it's mostly dull and boring. The music is good (some of it taken from Stage Fright) and so is the atmosphere, but there is little much else of interest. The story itself was interesting - it was just done in a boring way. The ending is rather confusing and silly. This is more of a drama than a horror, so I wouldn't recommend it to horror fans. If you love Italian films however, you may want to see it.

Inconspicuous but nevertheless stylish Lamberto Bava thriller with a couple of remotely suspenseful sequences and an attractive Italian cast. The plot sounds very familiar but, although Bava doesn't really pretend to be original, he still manages to make his film look innovating and compelling at times. The beautiful Linda and her virulent lover Carlo just killed Luca, Linda's fatuous husband, and they continue running the hotel/restaurant near a popular fishing-lake. Eight years later, however, a hitch-hiker shows up and he seems to know alarmingly many details about Linda's first marriage. Linda and Carlo start to distrust each other and even her little son Alex begins to suffer from nightmares about a murdered man that comes crawling out of the muddy ground... Indeed, the plot resembles a lot like "The Postman Always Rings Twice" but - since it's Bava - the killings are nastier and the characters are more deranged. When it comes to atmosphere and horrific mood-setting, this definitely is one of Lamberto Bava's best accomplishments. The music is also good and the acting is far above Italian standards, with Gioia Scola (Lucio Fulci's "Conquest), Urbano Barberini (Dario Argento's "Opera") and especially David Brandon, the mean-looking actor from "Delirium" and "Caligola – the Untold Story". Recommended!

Interesting variation of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE about Brandon (AQUARIUS) and Scola, who murdered Scola's husband six years ago and must now contend with her son's nightmares and the arrival of a stranger (Barberini, OPERA) who might know something about the case. Bava expectedly adds horror elements, although this is one of his more subtle works – and one of his best. Slightly overlong, not consistently good, but a must for fans of obscure movies.