Massacre

1989
4.2| 1h29m| en
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A prostitute is brutally killed by the road side by a maniancal killer. Nearby a horror film is being produced but the director is worried that the script is too passé for a modern audience and so he plans to include a séance scene - he hires a real medium to carry out a ceremony with the cast and crew to help inspire the script but she is attacked by an evil spirit. Meanwhile members of the cast are being picked off one by one and police detective Walter is desperate to stop his girlfriend, the lead actress Jennifer, becoming the next victim...

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Also starring Gino Concari

Reviews

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some
Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Juana 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.
Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Coventry In case half of this film's footage looks strangely familiar, it means you watch way too much of this gory Italian cult-crap! For you see, the notorious demigod Lucio Fulci did not only produce this movie, he also took the liberty of re-using the most sadistic killing sequences in his own (and more easily traceable) "Cat in the Brain". The opening scene already, in which a prostitute is brutally decapitated with an axe, features in Fulci's later film and so do another handful of killings and sleaze moments. Andrea Bianchi's "Masssacre" fails miserably as a giallo, since the search for the sadistic killer among a movie-crew shooting a horror movie is all but compelling and suspenseful, but it's still good entertainment if you're into cheap 'n shlocky horror trash. The incoherent script introduces a whole bunch of repugnant characters who're all potential maniacs, but none of the red herrings Biachi comes up with are plausible and you can point out the killer almost immediately. Whatever remains to enjoy are the truly misogynous make-up effects and the hilariously awful acting performances of the ensemble cast. Whenever there isn't any bloodshed on screen, like between the first and second murder, "Massacre" is a slow and almost intolerable with its inane dialogs and thoroughly unexciting photography. Thankfully in the second half, there are women getting impaled on fences and males being stabbed repeatedly with rusty spikes. The music is crap and the use of filming locations is very unimaginative. My advise would be to skip this puppy and go straight for the aforementioned "Cat in the Brain". That one features ALL the great moments of "Massacre", and then some.
Luisito Joaquin Gonzalez (LuisitoJoaquinGonzalez) It's somewhat ironic that Lucio Fulci supervised this belated entry to the giallo catalogue. Despite being two years his elder, Andrea Bianchi's work has always made him look like something of a protégé of the notorious craftsman. There are many Fulci trademarks to be found in the works of Bianchi. Most notably the extreme use of gratuitous gore and a taste for barely logical plot points. Over the years many have labeled Fulci as an inept filmmaker that hid his directorial shortcomings behind the talent of his special effects team. But titles like Don't Torture a Duckling and the excellent Zombi 2 have pretty much taken the gust out of that argument. If these critics truly believe that Fulci was an incompetent director, then gawd only knows what they'd make of Bianchi. His most famous movie – the notorious Burial Ground – is great fun if you love blood and guts. But if you judge it on it's merits as a motion picture, then it fails in just about every department. The acting was diabolical, the direction non-existent and I don't even think that it was filmed from a script. I hoped that Massacre would keep the gratuitous exploitation edge, but I was also looking for a little more credibility from Bianchi this time around.Massacre kicks off with a gruesome murder that was re-used by Fulci along with other gore scenes in the bemusing Nightmare Concert. A guy wearing red gloves, shades and a beanie hat is seen cruising along a lengthy stretch of road. He pulls up beside a young woman in a skimpy dress who greets him with the classic line, "Hey cutie wanna make love mmmm!" Unfortunately, 'making love' isn't exactly what this guy had in mind, and he proceeds to chop off the woman's hand and then decapitate her with an axe. Next up we meet a film crew that are shooting a zombie flick in the area called Dirty Blood. There's a whole heap of tension on the set because it doesn't look like any of the employees seem to get along with one another. The lead actress Jennifer (Patrizia Falcone) is dating a Local Police Captain called Walter (Gino Concarni). We soon learn from him that this maniacal killer has already murdered four other victims, and the authorities don't have a clue to his identity. Things really get nasty after the producer calls in a medium to hold a séance and teach his cast and crew the ways of the supernatural. The circle is broken when an evil spirit invades the sitting and forces the Medium to end the seance. Only hours later an unseen maniac begins slaughtering his way through the cast list one by one. Will any of them survive this massacre…? Surprisingly, Massacre is not as bad as I had initially expected. Silvano Tessicini did a credible job with the photography and the director even managed to build suspense in places. No really. As this is a Bianchi joint, the exploitation is spread thick and fast, and there's more female nudity than an Electric Blue omnibus. Look out for the scene where a victim flees the marauding killer with only a short skirt covering her modesty! The gory murders reveal a great flair for the macabre from the filmmaker and there's a body count to rival an Arnold Schwarzenegger machine gun frenzy. You probably won't solve the twist and turn mystery with ease, plus the boathouse massacre is a tremendous piece of mayhem, which deserves a second look. Massacre also boasts some wacky pre-politically correct dialogue, which will make even the most sinister viewer smile. It's also worth noting the amount of American stalk and slash clichés that have been incorporated with the more typical native giallo platitudes. At one point a fornicating couple are slaughtered whilst parked in the woods – an indisputable trademark of the USA teen slasher.But still this is far too bizarrely structured to be anything other than good in a bad way. As was the case with Burial Ground, there's just too much inadvertent humor to allow this to join the giallo elite. The murders certainly could have benefited with a little more directorial flourish and the musical accompaniment was continuously aggravating to the point of frustration. Bianchi certainly has an eye for a beautiful actress, and he always tries to include everything from lesbian proposals to soft-core pornography. Only problem is that he seems to prioritize acting ability way below bra size. It's a flaw that's only too evident from the start.The net result is a film that will satisfy forgiving fans that aren't expecting anything along the lines of Tenebrae or even Eyeball. To put it another way, if you could sit through Burial Ground without cringing at the screen then you'll probably enjoy this.
Elswet Sorry Fulci fans, but I could not get through this one. The soundtrack was about as annoying as they come, the acting was puerile, the story has been done and done, and the direction was non-existent. Massacre honestly looked like a children's film project. But I've seen some of those, and they actually look better than this did! It appears to have been so underfunded they couldn't afford ... ANYTHING! Not a DoP, not a director, no one who even remotely had a clue what acting was. It was a very poor cinematic experience; one of my worst.This was about the worst suck-fest I've seen, next to Terror Toons which is second only to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I've nothing else to say about it.It rates a 0.1/10 from...the Fiend :.
Bogey Man Massacre is pretty bad film, but it is not impossible to watch, but the viewer has to be Italo freak in order to sit through this. Let's make it straight: During credits and awful music, we see one pretty nasty (and dull) axe murder as a mysterious driver stops his car and kills a hooker standing by the side of the road with an axe. Then, the film begins, and NOTHING happens for next 45 minutes or so. It is sooo boring, but during the end, body count rises again and the "plot" seems to tighten. The film follows a film crew which is shooting a horror film, and soon the members start to disappear as the mystery madman with an axe or other blades kills people. Doesn't sound too original, but it does not matter when we're talking about this kind of cinema.There are unfortunately not many worth mentioning merits in this film. The music or other elements are not special and the over all look of Massacre is very dull and often stupid. But there are still few atmospheric moments in the forest and in the dark, and so we get that old feel of watching a really great Italian horror film, but this only reminds me distantly of those classics. The film could have been worse, but I must say that it should have definitely been much better! But I'm happy there are those mentioned moments, and I think that this is pretty rare title and thus collectable.I will also mention, that (almost) all the gore scenes in Massacre were used in Lucio Fulci's Un Gatto nel Cervello (aka Cat in a Brain aka Nightmare Concert), too. Many scenes from Fulci's own Quando Alice Ruppe lo Specchio (rare!) are in Nightmare Concert, too! I viewed first Nightmare Concert, and so there were no new murder scenes for me when I viewed Massacre, and it also made me feel a little frustrated. I didn't know that these scenes are in Fulci's film, even though I knew that Fulci used scenes from other films. But it doesn't matter, because Italo fans are used to be very forgiving and understanding! Fulci's mentioned Nightmare Concert is one hell of a gore fest, and the murders from Massacre fit in there well among others. So if you have already seen Un Gatto nel Cervello (akas: Nightmare Concert, Cat in a Brain) and haven't seen Massacre, then there are no new gory moments to see, but I hope that fans watch these films not only for gore or violence, because the thing I love most in Italian horror cinema is the atmosphere never matched by other countries' efforts. Massacre definitely isn't a great example of Italian mastery, but the viewing is a curiosity for fanatics and for those interested in the disturbed cinema of writer/director Andrea Bianchi, whose other merits include Malabimba and weird and wonderful (?) Zombie 3 aka Nights of Terror aka Burial Ground.Massacre earns 5/10 but only if one is as forgiving as I am, because watched as a "serious" (horror)film, Massacre fails miserably.

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