Census Bloodbath: Brazil Nuts

Note: The only accessible copy of this Brazilian slasher movie was in unsubtitled Portuguese, so take my review with a huge grain of salt.

Year:
1984
Director:
Custódio Gomes & Fauzi Mansur

Cast:
Marcelo Braz, J. Brito, Rosângela de Faria
Run Time:
1 hour 10 minutes

Plot: Karma - Enigma of Death (originally Karma - Enigma do Medo) is set at a secluded farm hotel that was the site of a horrific massacre in the 1800s that was orchestrated by the spurned lover (Mauro Pinto) of one of the women who lived there. The spirits of the slain are growing restless, and mysterious supernatural phenomena lead to the death of Elaina (Tatiana Mogambo)'s husband Fausto (uncredited co-director Custódio Gomes). Fausto's spirit emerges from his corpse and is shown the ropes of the astral plane by a spirit guide (Alain Fontaine) dressed in a prince costume that looks like it was stolen from a high school theater production of Once Upon a Mattress.

Various strangers, including a professor of the paranormal, a married couple, a drunk, and a nun - who are all reincarnated versions of the victims of the massacre - all arrive at the hotel. They are then killed one by one, only for their spirits to join the fray and begin killing the living as well (either by possessing other bodies, operating on the astral plane, or straight-up rising from the dead like zombies). 

Analysis: In case my plot synopsis didn't make that clear, coherence is not high on Karma - Enigma of Death's list of priorities. I usually find it helpful when the killer in a slasher begins mowing down victims, because it means that I have fewer characters to try and keep straight. Such is not the case here. Once people die, they not only stick around in the narrative but multiply like the heads of a hydra, sometimes interacting with the story in three different ways simultaneously (as ghosts, as dead corpses, as living corpses, and/or as possessing spirits).

I think I would have found this frustrating even if I could understand the dialogue. However, the supernatural elements are batshit enough that the movie is deliriously entertaining regardless. 

While I can't say that I love the yellowy film-negative imagery that is used to represent the spirit realm, the movie is exuberant, zestily throwing every possible strand of story spaghetti at the wall (including a demonic pig and a ghost resentfully bonking a woman with a car door), so I couldn't help but admire it.

Honestly, it's much better than I would have expected from this cast and crew, who were primarily known for pornographic movies (my favorite credit from the collected ensemble is the Mauro Pinto movie Meu pipi no seu popo, which roughly translates to My Pee-Pee in Your Butt). 

I wasn't necessarily inclined to trust the Brazilian adult film industry given how profoundly boring the 1983 softcore slasher Momentos de Prazer e Agonia proved to be, but art is art and artists are artists, no matter the medium. And Karma might not be capital-A Art, but I dug this enough that I'm very eager to revisit director Fauzi Mansur when he returns to the slasher genre in 1989 with Satanic Attraction.

Killer: Basically Everyone

Final Girl: Elaina (Tatiana Mogambo)

Best Kill: One character has a sword laboriously shoved through the front of his neck in a pretty killing blow.

Sign of the Times: The hunky dude who shows up to have sex with the widowed Elaina shows up with a sweater tied around his neck like he's a bully in a summer camp movie or something.

Scariest Moment: A character hides from a horde of zombies in the closet, only for them to appear on either side of him and grab him.

Weirdest Moment: One of the characters walks in on the nun conducting a Satanic ritual that involves lighting a liquid-filled bowl on fire, shrugs, and continues about his business.

Champion Dialogue: N/A

Body Count: 10; not including the one or two confused shootings shown in brief flashbacks to the massacre that took place 100 years ago.

1. Fausto is impaled by a sword that spontaneously appears through his torso.
2. Dark-Haired Woman is hanged offscreen.
3. Drunk is drowned.
4. Fisherman is strangled.
5. Blonde Woman dies offscreen.
6. Brunette is stabbed in the chest with a pitchfork.
7. Brown-Haired Guy is stabbed in the gut with a sickle.
8. Servant is stabbed in the shoulder with a sword.
9. Blue Shirt Guy is stabbed in the chest.
10. Mustache Guy is stabbed in the neck with a sword.

TL;DR: Karma - Enigma of Death is a baffling but effortlessly enjoyable affair.

Rating: 6/10

Census Bloodbath: Cyrano De Maniac

Note: This movie was only available to me in unsubtitled Italian, so take my review with a huge grain of salt.

Year:
1981
Director:
Bruno Corbucci
Cast:
Pippo Franco, Edwidge Fenech, Sergio Leonardi
Run Time:
1 hour 39 minutes

Plot: Luciano Persichetti (Pippo Franco) is a hapless, big-nosed clothing delivery guy who thinks that he has psychic powers, given his uncanny ability to predict which of the people in his life are about to be targeted by a killer known as The Guardian Angel. He mainly uses this to try to get into bed with the gorgeous parapsychology enthusiast Susanna Luisetti (giallo queen Edwige Fenech of Phantom of Death, Strip Nude for Your Killer, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Bloody Iris, Your Vice is a Locked Room, and Only I Have the Key, and more).

Analysis: I've heard enough about vintage Italian comedy movies to assume that the giallo riff The Nosy One (originally Il Ficcanaso) wasn't going to be any good. However, given its vintage, I held out hope that it might be a Student Bodies-style parody of giallo movies. Alas, this was simply a pure comedy movie with just enough giallo elements for me to not boot it off the Census Bloodbath roster (and reader, I really tried to).

Let's talk about those giallo elements first. It won't take long. This is a movie so desperately disinterested in interrogating the gialli that there isn't a single shot of the killer stalking a victim. The only moment where a gloved killer brandishes a weapon turns out to be a prank. And the only victim who we actually see being attacked is 1) shot by an unseen assailant and 2) survives.

This is basically the slasher version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, where a giallo movie is happening just offscreen while the main characters bumble around doing nothing. In fact, I have no idea if my body count is correct, because we barely even see the aftermath of the offscreen kills. I had to deduce that a kill had just happened from the actors' performances and the instrumental score by Franco Micalizzi (which thankfully adds an exaggerated funeral dirge to those moments). I'm sure the dialogue discussed the kills in more detail, but as a visual experience, The Nosy One was even less of a giallo movie than, say, E.T.

At least the comedy is kind of OK. While I can't speak to any dialogue-based humor, the physical comedy is juvenile and broad, but not unappealing. Pippo Franco's performance recalls both Buster Bluth and Mr. Bean, so it wasn't terrible to spend time with him. I wish the comedy had more to do with skewering giallo tropes than farting, but for what it is, it's fine.

The movie also looks pretty good. It has been crisply preserved, and it is for the most part both well lit and legible (save a sequence in a dark warehouse that is dismayingly murky). It generally lacks the abundance of style that the gialli were known for (there is no giallo trope that The Nosy One doesn't fail to evoke), but at least there are plenty of shots where bright reds and greens flood the frame.

Killer: Old Guy

Final Girl: Luciano (Pippo Franco), Susanna (Edwidge Fenech), and basically every other major character

Best Kill: I guess it has to be the death of the dark-haired lady who is vying for Luciano's attention, because at least we see her body being discovered. In true The Nosy One fashion, I have no idea how she died, but I think it was by electrocution.

Sign of the Times: The fact that Italians were so done with giallo movies that they were willing to do whatever this is to it.

Scariest Moment: The moment I realized that we were never actually going to see the killer murdering anybody.

Weirdest Moment: During a conversation with Luciano, Susanna sits there and butters the most enormous pile of toast I've ever seen.

Champion Dialogue: N/A

Body Count: 4; give or take - and not including a dream sequence where both Luciano and Susanna are shot.

1. Man is killed offscreen.
2. Somebody is killed offscreen.
3. Dark-Haired Lady is killed offscreen, potentially by electrocution.
4. Security Guard is killed offscreen.

TL;DR: The Nosy One is unremarkable more than it is truly bad, but it is despicably misguided as a giallo riff.

Rating: 4/10

Census Bloodbath: From A To Zito

Year:
1981
Director:
Joseph Zito
Cast:
Ian Scott, James Johnson, Judith-Marie Bergan
Run Time:
1 hour 18 minutes

Plot: Bloodrage follows Richard (Ian Scott), a young man who moves to New York City to follow his dream of murdering sex workers. On his tail is renegade cop Johnny Ryan (James Johnson), the boyfriend of Richard's first victim, Bev (Judith-Marie Bergan).

Analysis: Bloodrage is one of those early '80s slashers that had a circuitous enough route to the screen that it was actually completed in 1979, though it didn't arrive at the Cannes market until 1980, in theaters anywhere until 1981, and on video in the U.S. until 1983. So while this is technically a 1980s slasher, it comes from that pre-Friday the 13th period where we were still figuring out what the hell the genre was going to be. 

At the time, one of the proposed answers to that question was "a sleazy post-grindhouse hangover." This is the sentiment that gave us movies like Maniac and Don't Answer the Phone. Not my favorite slasher subgenre. But at least Bloodrage provides an additional point of interest in that it was directed by Joseph Zito, who went on to helm the iconic slashers The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Unfortunately, a more inexperienced Zito without makeup maestro Tom Savini giving him something good to shoot makes for a real slog. Bloodrage evokes the crushing boredom of the third act of The Prowler rather than any of the superb gore-thriller elements of its first act or the sublime slasher filmmaking of The Final Chapter. 

That said, there is at least one glimmer here. The opening sequence in Indiana is very special, showing us a regular degular day in Bev's life that is interrupted by her sudden, brutal death when Richard pushes her through a window and her neck is cut open on the broken glass (in the film's only proper gore moment). What follows is a tightly wound thriller sequence where Richard tries to clean up and hide her body before he's discovered by Johnny. The whole introduction is genuinely shocking and cleanly sets up all three characters, putting you in their heads for better or for worse.

Unfortunately, not a single scene that follows comes remotely close to hitting those heights (except maybe the final 15 seconds, which see Richard's reign of terror end in a charmingly perfunctory manner). Once Richard moves to the city, the movie gently oscillates between sequences that are tedious, irritating, or both. He's also a dismayingly passive character, just resentfully drifting through scenes like he'd really rather be anywhere else. Dude, get in line!

At least the movie effectively delivers its thesis that New York City is a grimy cesspit. Plus, the local color that spills around Richard at least offers some interesting texture (particularly the old lady in curlers who calmly stares out her window, watching as he peeps on the sex worker across the street). 

And the very best thing that I can say is that the movie is slightly less misogynistic than it could have been. While it's rough to sit through Richard monotonously monologuing while he stalks and brutalizes women, his victims aren't nameless sheep lined up for him to slaughter. The women he targets are treated with the smallest glimmer of respect by the screenplay. They all have names, lives, and personalities, which makes the horror they go through feel sharper in a way that is admittedly effective.

But "it could have been sleazier" is hardly a ringing endorsement. Bloodrage is an ineptly made motion picture, for the most part. Consider the looooooong elevator scene, where Zito can't find a place to put lights, so he doesn't bother, just slathering the frame in impenetrable shadows. This is compounded by his inability to properly photograph people of color, so the two Black characters in the scene just look like floating hats.

The filmmakers also clearly failed to shoot the entire script, because a vital scene (Richard being recognized by Johnny on the street, which kicks off a brawl) takes place entirely offscreen. Fun!

Killer: Richard (Ian Scott)

Final Girl: Nancy (Betsy Ranlow)

Best Kill: The opening kill - Bev falling through the window - is by far the best, both in terms of gore and execution.

Sign of the Times: Bev writes down all her sex appointments in this cute little flipbook.

Scariest Moment: A long sequence shows Richard working at a Yoo-hoo factory and really gets across the grinding monotony involved in that job.

Weirdest Moment: Richard paints his door, carefully painting around the knob before manically spreading paint all over the knob itself.

Champion Dialogue: “You don't have anything better to do with your time, like jerk off or something?"

Body Count: 6

1. Bev is pushed through a window, and the glass cuts her neck open.
2. Man is stabbed by a mugger.
3. Lucy is strangled with a telephone cord.
4. Ruby the Dog has her neck snapped and is thrown out the window.
5. Candice is choked out with an elbow.
6. Richard is thrown out a window.

TL;DR: Bloodrage could be more misogynistic than it is, but it's a sleazy chore that is tedious and annoying.

Rating: 3/10