Starring Mickey Hargitay, Walter Brandi, Luisa Baratto, Ralph Zucker, Rita Klein
Directed by Massimo Pupillo
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A pulp fiction publisher brings a group of beautiful models to a castle for a photo shoot, unaware that it's the resting place of the legendary Crimson Executioner, who tortured victims centuries before.
Purportedly based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, this Italian tale of innocents tortured by the supposed "ghost" of the Crimson Executioner, stars Hargitay, the famed bodybuilder who married Jayne Mansfield, and he's pretty over the top, but I felt that he didn't have the best dialogue to make his character's intentions and motivations clear. There's not much depth to the other characters either, whom we don't really get to know before they're murdered or become objects of torture. Colorfully photographed, the film is often beautiful to look at, despite the distasteful torture scenes, and goes through a few shifts in tone, with the footage of the photo shoot pretty light-hearted with some rather silly music before the violence begins. Some care was taken in designing a number of tortuous death traps, with a giant spider web protected by deadly trip wires particularly impressive visually. There's also some quality moments of suspense during the torture scenes, but I found these uncomfortable to watch, and not my kind of entertainment. Overall, I think the film looks great and I enjoyed the music score, but think that the script and Hargitay's performance were not of the same quality.
No comments:
Post a Comment