Customer Reviews

Spasmo

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You have to be in the right state of mind to enjoy this movie. The plot becomes so confusing halfway , one can't really tell what's going on. Many will simply turn off the TV, but if you're patient you will be rewarded with an pretty interesting ending. Film has all the familiar trappings: beautiful scenery, beautiful women, including a very sexy Suzy Kendall (looking a lot like Susan George) and some pretty weird characters. The violence is pretty explicit, but kind of tame for giallos. And there's very little nudity. This is a pretty good rainy Sunday afternoon movie. Worth a look.

"Spasmo" gave me quite a surprise. It has unseated "Seven Blood-Stained Orchids" as my favorite giallo from Umberto Lenzi, director of the notorious cannibal movies such as "Eaten Alive" and "Make Them Die Slowly." Surprisingly enough, you wouldn't think the same man directed "Spasmo" and "Eaten Alive." There is very little gore or nudity. What you do have is a lot of weirdness and strangeness from beginning to end. While watching this giallo, I kept asking myself, "What is going on here? Where is this leading? Why do these people keep acting so strange? Why are there so many plastic female mannequins hanging from the trees with nooses around their necks and knives in their bellies?"

The first murder doesn't take place until nearly two-thirds into the movie. I was beginning to wonder if "Spasmo" was truly a giallo. My patience was rewarded, however. Towards the end there are numerous twists and the bodies pile up. All the loose ends are nicely wrapped up. The plastic "dolls" are explained, and it wasn`t a fraternity playing tricks.

You won't soon forget the ending of "Spasmo." It will haunt my dreams for a long time. I never saw it coming. Whereas the plot for "Seven Blood-Stained Orchids" was more linear and predictable, the plot for "Spasmo" was wildly unpredictable. (In all fairness, some of the death scenes in "Seven Blood-Stained Orchids" were truly gruesome and unique.) It is unlike anything I've seen from Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, or Sergio Martino. "Spasmo" is a truly unique giallo.

Furthermore, Giallo queen Suzy Kendall (of Dario Argento's "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" and Sergio Martino's "Torso.") gives an excellent performance in "Spasmo." Legendary composer, Ennio Morricone provides a beautifully haunting score. The ocean scenery is breathtakingly gorgeous; the stone beach house is very gothic.

"Spasmo" is a must have for giallo fans. It has been made a permanent part of my collection. The revelation ending is to die for.

I agree with the other reviewers that all of the plot intrigues are a bit much with this film. But the basic set-up is great: an apparently innocent man is being pushed to the brink of a nervous breakdown by various parties, all or some of whom may be working together in an effort to send him over the edge. Throw in some great music (by Morricone, of course), a cast of over-the-top characters, and tons of suspense, and you've got a great film. But the writer and/or director went a little too far with all the various twists and turns here; there are only so many surprises a viewer can withstand in one 94-minute film. Having said that, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I have watched 10 or 12 Giallos over the past few months, and of those I would put this one near the top of the heap, just below Dario Argento's films but far above some of the stylish but superficial Giallos that were made.

The other reviewer is right.. It is a bit confusing and muddled in the middle but the movie as a whole is satisfying. I'd rather a movie be too complicated than too simple. At least it makes me want to see it again. If you like twisted mysteries and/or 70s Italian cinema, this is a nice choice. It's not up there with The Case of the Scorpion's Tale or any of Argento's movies but still, it's worth a look.

Now that I've seen a lot of these mid 1970's giallo thrillers, I'm starting to lose patience with the ones that confuse being mysterious with being just plain incoherent, and that's what Spasmo is. A man named Christian finds a young woman called Barbara unconscious on a beach and they begin an affair, but almost immediately, weird things start happening. An intruder breaks into Barbara's bathroom, and Christian kills him, but the body vanishes. Life-sized female dolls are found around the countryside, in various "just murdered" poses, and Christian starts meeting people he recognises, all of whom deny that they have met before. This goes on for around an hour until finally an explanation is revealed, but it's a very poor one.

The film never manages to arouse your real interest because the events happening are not really that interesting. And the script is terrible, most notably when Christian and Barbara are flirting and there's all this stupid talk about his beard...you'll know what I mean! The life-sized dolls look great, but they are never used with any real impact and have about 1% relevance to the plot's end revelations. Suzy Kendall looks lovely as Barbara, despite having such awful dialogue to read out...she acts with sincerity, but the script destroys her performance, as it does for most of the other actors too.

Spasmo, therefore, is nothing more than mildly diverting. The widescreen photography is nice, but with no gore, only a tiny bit of nudity, a confusing plot and a weak ending, it ranks several notches down when compared to the many other, better, giallos out there.