Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

dougdoepke After this pile of dreck, I took a shower. I guess an orgy of sadism like this has its fans. Not me. I do like a good horror movie, but this has none of those artful qualities. Instead it's an endless round of pain, screams, blood, fights and torture, mainly torture. Oh sure, there's the expected skin show, but given the context, it's about as sexy as a kick in the groin. I guess by filming in Italy, the producers could get more bang for their ten bucks, while the castle and surrounding landscape do produce scenic grabbers. But the glowing Technicolor is better suited to cartoons, while the expressionless dubbing is about as good as mine. Meanwhile, muscleman Hargitay does little more than take off his shirt and roll in a vat of glistening oil. All in all, I guess you could say I didn't like the movie, and would only recommend it to folks who like politicians' speeches. Meanwhile, I think I'll catch another round of the great I Walked With A Zombie.

tomgillespie2002 When a group of photographers and models sneak into an apparently abandoned castle to do a photo-shoot, they are immediately asked to leave by the castle's inhabitant, Travis Anderson (Mickey Hargitay). But when he recognises his ex-fiancé Edith (Luisa Baratto) amongst the group, he changes his mind and gives them the freedom of the castle. Lurking in the castle's dungeons, where the group have set up, is the preserved body of an executed serial-killer named The Crimson Executioner, and when his coffin is disturbed, his spirit is released and enters the body of Travis. Soon enough, bodies are dropping like flies while the 'hero' Rick (Walter Brandi), desperately attempts to save them.Former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay made a moderately successful career for himself after appearing in the excellently madcap Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) with his wife Jayne Mansfield. He was mainly employed in B-grade Italian horror movies such as the twisted Delirium (1972), and he is just about the only good thing is Bloody Pit of Horror, also known as The Red Hangman, A Tale of Torture, and most hilariously, Some Virgins for the Hangman. Although his role is completely ridiculous, he has a hulking presence that brings a likability to Travis, even when he is wide-eyed, tightening the hold of a rack. Plus I couldn't imagine anyone else being able to pull off those red, spandex pants.The sets have a bright, technicholour warmth about them, reminiscent of some of the classic Hammer horrors and Roger Corman's Poe adaptations, that give the film a nicely Gothic, if slightly camp, feel. But ultimately it is as effective as wrapping a ribbon around a turd, failing to cover up the sheer atrocity of its direction. It is so over- the-top and silly that the film ends up feeling like a cartoon, containing torture scenes that include a woman stuck in a giant web with a spider so badly constructed, I don't know if it was meant to be real or not. That said, I still found this quite fun, but I don't feel good about it.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Hitchcoc I'm probably in the wrong place. Most of the reviewers have a connection to this genre, so maybe it's unfair for me to write about it. I'm looking at it as a film in the general sense. This is utter crap. It always amazes me how people in horror movies go about their business, even though their group is being murdered methodically by some unknown force. This happens here. The girls continue to pose, even though there are less of them. At least they sent one guy to the police; that's something. The rest of it is exploitative soft-core pornography. Mickey Hargetay is interesting. I like his daughter on Law And Order: SVU. She's a better actress than he is an actor. Almost everything out of his mouth is so stupid that at no point could I care. Then there's all that torture. I got a kick out of the girls going around a cylinder while he pushed blades toward them, cutting them a little at a time. Just a terrible movie.

tracyfigueira This movie has everything: beautiful women, great set design, garish color photography, cool music, and quite possibly the worse acting performance in history by the late great Mickey Hargitay, the legendary Hungarian body builder who was the husband of Jayne Mansfield and the father of Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.") He plays a head case obsessed with the "harmony" of his "perfect body," and fears the "contamination" of "inferior beings," especially women. When a group of cover girls, their photographer, writer, editor, and crew break into his castle in Italy to take cover pictures for upcoming paperbacks, he assumes the persona of "The Crimson Executioner," a centuries old serial killer executed in 1648. The ensuing torture scenes are pretty intense, but there's little actual blood and gore. My favorite scene was the girl tied to the giant spider web. Although allegedly based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, "Bloody Pit of Horror" is actually quite tame by the standards of today's torture porn and not to be confused with more graphic (and disturbing) efforts like Pasolini's "Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom." "Bloody Pit of Horror" is good if not exactly clean fun for lovers of cheesy horror, scantily clad models, and really bad acting. The production values are about par for an early "Doctor Who" episode, and the fight-scenes are straight out of the old "Batman" series. More proof that the Italians are the world's greatest purveyors of crap cinema.