Monday, February 24, 2014

Italian Horror




THE LAST HOUSE IN THE WOODS-2006-In the 1980's Italy churned countless cannibal exploitation movies featuring cheap extreme gore, nudity and real animal killings. It's been a long time since the last one but director Gabriele Albanesi (his first feature film after music videos and shorts) seems to want to revive the genre' with his TEXAS CHAINSAW (and Bava and Argento) inspired splatter film.

While discussing their relationship problems a couple Aurora (Daniela Virgillo) and Rino (Daniele Grassetti) are terrorized by three thugs. Rino is beaten badly but before the trio can do harm to Aurora the thugs are chased away by Antonio (Gennaro Diana) who happens to be driving by with his wife Clara (Santa De Santis). Antonio takes the couple back to his house and then the trouble begins. (you know right away by the title anyway...) It turns out Antonio and Clara are the parents to killer cannibalistic children. One is a little boy with sharp teeth and the other two are giggling sadistic "monsters". (they look like something from a Coffin Joe movie) After being knocked out Aurora awakens to find Rino with his leg cut off and the family munching on it. They then proceed to cut off his arm with a chainsaw! Meanwhile the punks return and seem to be Aurora's only hope for survival! It features a bloody beating, a guy trying to hold in his bleeding intestines, a bloody knife fight, flesh ripping and a surprise in the basement but the grossest scene involves the crushing of a tumor on one of the killer's neck. Director Albanesi sets up some great scenes with color, darkness and unusual music (at least for this kind of movie) but some scenes go on too long and the shock ending didn't make a whole lot of sense. Still it's better than most recent horror films made in the US.

Thanks for reading!

1 comment:

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

This is on my horror recs challenge list this year so I'll be watching it sometime this year. Glad to hear it's not awful!