Customer Reviews

Darkness Surrounds Roberta

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As a longtime fan of Italian genre cinema (starting back in the early 60's and spanning through the 80's and even isolated instances to date), you'd think something like this would appeal to me. Having sat through, and loved, generally derided films from Joe D'Amato's Filmirage company and the likes of the Bianchi brothers, Lenzi and Deodato; having plumbed the heights and depths of the Italian subgenre from cannibal to zombie to nunsploitation to WWII-sploitation to erotic to comedy to poliziotteschi and beyond; being a proud owner of just about everything released by every major Italian director (and several minor ones) and every release put out by No Shame, Severin and MYA (as well as Italian releases by Shriek Show/Media Blasters, Blue Underground, Anchor Bay, etc.), you would certainly think this would be another notch on the video shelf, right? Well...wrong.

I'm not sure how to classify this one, first of all. While using a mainly Italian cast and set in Italy, the director appears to be one of those "backyard coppolas" from the US. While it's not quite "shot on video" quality, the whole production stinks of mid-90's "made for TV" productions such as Forever Knight. And while I admit to liking the first 2 seasons of that rather bizarre Canadian export, it's not exactly the kind of thing I'm into or looking for when I buy a DVD.

One of the film's presumed selling points is that it's supposed to be a faithful homage to the 1970's giallo. Well...sort of, but not really. I've seen closer homage back when I was still subscribing to C(Sk)inemax. Another is that Redemption/Salvation girl Eileen Daly (the vampiress who adorns the covers of their original releases and hosts those cheesy pseudo-"erotic" introductory skits (remember all those Jean Rollin DVDs a few years back, and how the intros had nothing whatsoever to do with the film that followed?). Well, let's put it this way: a cute Halowe'en costume apparently covers a multitude of sins. Her rather small role as the madam of (if memory serves) "English Muffins" (or "A bit of crumpet" or some suchlike cheesy pun) wasn't exactly flattering, and didn't quite show Ms. Daly in her best light, to say the least.

The film itself? Well, not bad...if you didn't mind Fatal Frames. I actually think Al Festa might have done a similar job with the material as what is on display here. If that doesn't say it all, have a peek at the extras, and see just how unlikeable the director and crew really seem to be...a very qualified recommendation to hardcore fans of Italian genre cinema. All others steer clear.