Color, 1972, 101 mins. Directed by Armando Crispino
Starring Alex Cord, Samantha Eggar, John Marley, Enzo Tarascio, Horst Frank, Carlo De Mejo / Music by Riz Ortolani / Cinematography by Erico Menczer
Format: DVD - Eurovista (MSRP $22.95) Letterboxed (2.35:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
The first of two Italian thrillers directed by jack of all trades Armando Crispino, The Dead Are Alive is better known to giallo fans under the more evocative but equally misleading title of The Etruscan Rises
Jason (Alex Cord), an American photographer, has arrived at the excavation site of a series of Etruscan tombs tagged for archaeological study. His arrival sparks a reunion with his ex-wife, Myra (Samantha Eggar), who has become involved with a much older but equally temperamental conductor, Nikos Samarakis (John Marley, most famous for waking up with a horse's head in The Godfather). The Etruscan dig is disrupted when two interloping teenagers are brutally clubbed to death (a scene highly reminiscent of Dario Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet, only bloodier), and the bodies are arranged in a strange fashion suggesting the ancient sacrificial rites of Tuchulcha, an Etruscan god whose face adorns the tomb's walls. The murders continue to pile up, accompanied all the
Though less explicit and outrageous than Autopsy, Crispino's second horror outing, this film shares with its successor a batch of dysfunctional and often unlikeable characters, a gimmicky supernatural conceit designed to divert suspicion from an all too human murderer, and a melancholy, poetic finale. Though hardly an outstanding entry in the giallo sweepstakes, the proceedings are enlivened by the unusual settings, some earnest performances (with Marley in particular leaving the scenery torn to shreds), and a beautiful score by Mondo Cane's Riz Ortolani. The murders are appropriately brutal for the time without resorting to explicit knifings, and for once in this genre, the male victims outdistance the female ones.
Color, 1975, 100 mins. Directed by Armando Crispino
Starring Mimsy Farmer, Barry Primus, Ray Lovelock, Gaby Wagner, Angela Goodwin, Massimo Serato / Music by Ennio Morricone
Format: DVD - Anchor Bay (MSRP $29.98)
Letterboxed (1.85:1) (16x9 enhanced) / Dolby Digital Mono
About as weird as an Italian mystery can possibly get, Autopsy gained notoriety upon its original theatrical release when the U.S. distributor encouraged rumors that real autopsies were conducted and filmed during production. Of course, this is about as believable as the final "real" murder in Snuff, but the movie became a 42nd Street and drive-in favorite anyway. What viewers really got was a twisted, unconventional giallo packed with creepy set pieces and a truly novel setting.
While a stifling heat wave strikes Rome and sends many of the denizens fleeing into the countryside, a wave of suicides provoked by sunspots(!) causes more activity than usual in the local morgues. Sensitive pathologist Simona (Mimsy Farmer) is working on a thesis examining real versus staged suicides, and her work begins to get to her. Simona's disturbing hallucinations feature the fresh, mutilated corpses rising from their slabs, mugging for the camera, and even having sex on the morgue floor!
The second trip into the macabre from director Crispino (The Etruscan Kills Again), this film was originally released as Macchie Solari and, according to the apparently erroneous press materials, was listed with an inflated running time of 125 minutes! Joseph Brenner picked the film up for the U.S. and re-edited the opening sequence to omit the opening titles, instead cutting new credits with an unforgettable funky beat into the harrowing suicide
By far the most impressive release of this film in any edition, Anchor Bay's DVD of Autopsy is completely uncut and looks fantastic. The weird, often subdued color schemes don't offer many opportunities for an eye-popping video transfer, but the materials used are absolutely pristine and vividly realized. An uncut letterboxed edition was previously available on Japanese VHS, but that version was marred by optical censoring of all frontal nudity (which is a lot in this film). However, the Japanese version also contained an effective two channel stereo soundtrack, while the Anchor Bay disc is mono; the loss isn't tremendous, but it's odd they didn't include that version as an option. The disc also includes an alternate Italian language track-- pretty much useless without any subtitles-- as well as the U.S. trailer (which blows the entire ending) and a European trailer as The Victim.
Again. Sporting the usual international cast, a few gory murders, and a labyrinthine plot which frequently rises to the level of pure hysteria, this is '70s shocker filmmaking at its most typical, though newcomers to Eurosleaze may be left scratching their heads half an hour into the story.
while by startling bursts of loud choral music, as Jason scrambles to deal with his feelings toward Myra and unravel the mystery in the process. Meanwhile Nikos prepares for an elaborate musical show to celebrate the ancient Festival dei Due Mondi, whose timing coincides with another violent turn of events.
Complete with an unusually good American dialogue track with voices from most of the original actors, The Etruscan Rises Again was briefly released in the U.S. under its alternate title by National General Pictures, who also distributed the American edition of Argento's The Cat o' Nine Tails. The film has been infernally difficult to see ever since, with many European prints (particularly the one prepared for co-financier Germany) missing both violence and crucial plot points, including one of Marley's better tantrums. Even uncut prints (such as the Dutch video edition entitled Overtime) have been terribly cropped, destroying the orignial scope compositions. A scope 16mm print was transferred to video by Luminous Video Wurks, who now carry the same transfer on DVD through the banner of Eurovista. To start off with the good news, the horizontal letterboxing looks just about right and is even slightly windowboxed to provide as much image as possible. The colors are relatively strong and stable, and for what it's worth, this is by far the best the film has ever looked on home video. However, the picture is also a bit soft, and the print has suffered from some distracting damage, including numerous scratches, awkward splices (particularly during the opening credits), and a recurring tiny tear in the lower left corner which lasts throughout the entire film. Also some scenes appear to be oddly misframed, likely a flaw from the original source, with the top matte coming in far too low at times and covering up the upper half of people's heads. The picture is also squeezed out horizontally a bit too much, with the framing actually measuring out closer to 2.45:1. The audio is scratchy and muddy at times, but dialogue remains intelligible throughout. More inexplicably, the first few seconds of the opening shot are missing, and while trying this disc out on four different players, the film abruptly freezes and returns to the main menu just before the end credits kick in. To watch the credits, you must either fast forward for a moment past the final shot of the film or access them directly from the scene selection menu. Toshiba owners should also note that the disc freezes up on the opening Eurovista logo; you have to access "Title 1" on your remote to go to the film rather than going to the menu or hitting "Play." Extras include a black and white "Terror Times" booklet reproducing the original U.S. press kit, a gallery of international lobby cards and video art, and some sketchy talent bios. Probably worth picking up for Eurocult completists, but be aware of what you're getting.
Simona's piggish boyfriend, Ed (Ray Lovelock, the memorable bearded Scot from Let Sleeping Corpses Lie), is peeved when her visions interfere with their sex life. One day a gunshot suicide victim found on the beach is wheeled in, and Simona recognizes the victim as a beautiful woman she had seen earlier. The brother of the deceased, a slightly sinister priest (Barry Primus), believes the woman's death was actually murder, and Simona's research indicates he may be correct.
montage which kicks off the film. A few dialogue trims were made, and the entire end credits wound up on the floor as well. The result was not a substantially different film, and all of its strengths remained intact. Farmer's jittery, shrill performance was apparently intended, while one can only wonder what she sees in the shifty Primus, one of the screen's most unlikely men of the cloth. Lovelock easily takes the acting honors, as usual, with his misogynist pig getting all of the most memorable lines. The film is astoundingly graphic at times, particularly during some very revelaing sex scenes and a chilling, suspenseful peek inside a crime museum that isn't easily forgotten. Some of the film rambles on a little more slowly than it should, but that's '70s Italian mysteries for ya. Ennio Morricone also contributes a lovely, haunting main theme, which was stupidly left off the soundtrack album and most memorably accompanies the film's final poetic scene.
