Census Bloodbath: Marriage Can Be Murder

Year:
1985
Director:
Alberto De Martino
Cast:
Christina Nagy, David Warbeck, Carroll Blumenberg
Run Time:
1 hour 36 minutes

Plot: Formula for a Murder (AKA 7, Hyden Park - La casa maledetta) is set in New York state and follows Joanna (Christina Nagy), a rich woman who has had paraplegia since she was sexually assaulted by a man dressed as a priest and thrown down a flight of stairs (there's your clue that this is an Italian movie, if the title didn't already tip you off). After marrying her athletic trainer Craig (David Warbeck of The Beyond and The Black Cat), she finds herself in the middle of a tangled web of deceit, as (mid-plot spoiler alert) he is working with her friend Ruth (Carroll Blumenberg) to murder her and inherit her fortune, killing anybody who gets in the way of this plan.

Analysis: I would have straight-up removed Formula for a Murder from my Census Bloodbath list if not for two things. 1) There is a dream sequence that adds an additional onscreen kill, proving that the movie was at least slightly interested in being a slasher and not just a Hitchcockian thriller with occasional plot-necessary murders. 2) This is unmistakably a giallo movie.

It's a late-period giallo, certainly, but director and co-writer Alberto De Martino (who also made 1982's vividly unmemorable Blood Link) put in a black-gloved killer and some overheated murder melodrama, and you simply can't ignore that, even though the movie mostly revolves around a single, constantly-foiled murder plot than a constant string of body count murders.

Anyway, one major reason I was highly motivated to try and remove the movie from the list, beyond its failures as a slasher, is that it is a deathly dull experience. A movie with this little happening requires a strong character study to prop it up, and nobody onscreen has the barest wisp of a personality. And while Ruth and Craig are at least brought to life by competent actors, the actual lead delivers her poorly translated dialogue with all the fervor of a stoned teenager offering you pretzel samples at a mall. Formula for a Murder is Christina Nagy's only credited film role, and if you ask me, her resume coulda done with one less.

That said, it's not an entirely terrible slasher. There is a profoundly creepy recurring motif of a priest slowly approaching Joanna while holding a doll that both has these unsettling, swollen eyes and tinkles out a high-pitched nursery rhyme. Every time that comes back, it'll send a shiver down the spine. And the kills, while infrequent, aren't half-bad. They're not particularly gory by any stretch of the imagination, but they're more brutal and affective than they have to be, particularly a throat slashing via straight razor that shows how much effort it might actually take to carve through all that irritating gristle contained in the human neck.

There is also a scene where Joanna has a literal screaming orgasm that feels like it belongs in a proper 1970s giallo, so that's something. However, the fact that we are forced to spend so much time with her outside of that scene has a profoundly deleterious effect on the movie. She's tedious even at the best of times, but she can't even get survival right, because her Final Girl sequence one-ups Laurie Strode's "hit 'em once, take a nap" strategy by having her mostly just assume that because Craig has briefly passed out, this means that he has simply expired of his own accord. Maybe she figured that she had bored him to death.

Killer: Craig (David Warbeck)

Final Girl: Joanna (Christina Nagy)

Best Kill: This is probably my pick because it's the only one that feels different from the others, but one of the priests is slammed ruthlessly about the face with a shovel in a protracted and quite intense sequence. 

Sign of the Times: There's a whole lot of business about trying to reach a cordless phone handset that has been tossed down the stairs.

Scariest Moment: In Joanna's nightmare, she is wheeled away helplessly by an increasingly menacing priest.

Weirdest Moment: Dr. Sernich (Rossano Brazzi of Fear City) patiently explains that, even though Joanna's condition is fragile, hardcore sex won't kill her as long as it is an act of love.

Champion Dialogue: “You won't have time to feel sorry for yourself when we're married."

Body Count: 5

1. Father Peter has his throat slit with a straight razor.
2. Father Davis is bludgeoned repeatedly in the face with a shovel.
3. Dream Priest is stabbed to death by Joanna.
4. Ruth has her throat slashed with a straight razor.
5. Craig succumbs to his stab/falling-out-a-window wounds.

TL;DR: Formula for a Murder is boring as all hell, but it has a few exquisitely creepy moments to its name.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 803

Census Bloodbath: I Loathe New York

Year: 1984

Director: Abel Ferrara

Cast: Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Scalia

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Plot: Fear City follows an ex-boxer named Matt Rossi (Tom Berenger), who is haunted by memories of accidentally killing an opponent. He is now a promoter for exotic dancers, and a killer is hunting them down one by one. He attempts to solve the murders while actual detective Al Wheeler (Billy Dee Williams) attempts to find the evidence pinning the crime on Matt. Also Matt wants to get back together with his ex, exotic dancer and drug addict Loretta (Melanie Griffith), who is currently in a relationship with another dancer, Leila (Rae Dawn Chong).

Analysis: Well, this movie sure is star-studded! At least to the degree that the TV movie slashers of the era were, and that's not meant to be damning with faint praise. It's even got a name brand slasher director in Abel Ferrara, who had previously helmed The Driller Killer in 1979. Unfortunately, it's merely content to be a sleazy movie that alternates slayings with long scenes of strip performances and not in the "gee, isn't this artistic and fun" approach that the later Stripped to Kill would take.

And honestly? The slasher elements are pretty shit in this entry. It's much more committed to being a psychological portrait of an ex-boxer than it is to be a movie about murder, and while I suppose that's a fine impulse, it's executed poorly and really saps the energy away from the slasher element. Like many slashers that don't have a killer picking off a group of people one by one in an isolated location, it doesn't give the victims much time to establish themselves with the audience before they're taken out, and the kill scenes are mere flashes that sometimes last no more than three seconds.

I guess I'm not advocating for this already misogynistic film to revel in the mutilation of women, but the allegedly gritty urban stories they choose to prioritize over the murders are a real bummer to sit through. While I can see some cult film audiences finding camp enjoyment in, say, Billy Dee Williams spouting off ethnic slurs like he's entering a bigotry contest, it just didn't deliver anything I really hoped I would be seeing. 

The one saving grace of the movie is the fact that its killer is fucking weird. Between killings, we see brief glimpses of him at home, writing his manifesto and practicing karate moves naked. It sure isn't a film-saving element, but Fear City is in desperate need of anything remotely interesting outside of the vague inherent charms of watching a bunch of actors who know they deserve better bumming around a sleazy movie.

Killer: The Killer (Neil Clifford)

Final Girl: Loretta (Melanie Griffith)

Best Kill: One of the victims gets hit with nunchuks while walking through the park, so that's neat.

Sign of the Times: Loretta's queerness only exists in service of her relationship to Matt and not an actual thing that seems to be coming from within her personality.

Scariest Moment: One of the victims tearfully describes her fingers being snipped with scissors, intercut with shots of the previous night's incident.

Weirdest Moment: Any time the movie cuts to what the killer is up to.

Champion Dialogue: "Bad things have been happening to me. I need some money."

Body Count: 8

1. Silver is stabbed.
2. Mafioso #1 and
3. Mafioso #2 are shot in a drive-by.
4. Leila dies in the hospital.
5. Stripper is nunchuked to death.
6. Cindy is slashed with a sword.
7. Jorge is hanged offscreen.
8. The Killer is boxed to death.

TL;DR: Fear City is a sleazy exploitation movie that doesn't offer enough interesting material to redeem itself.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 627

Left Behind

Year: 1981

Director: Graham Baker

Cast: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon 

Run Time: 1 hour 48 minutes 

MPAA Rating: R

You can listen to my full review of Omen III: The Final Conflict on Scream 101 right here.

TL;DR: Omen III: The Final Conflict is a film with some brutal moments, but pulls its punches too often to be satisfying apocalyptic mayhem.

Rating: 3/10

Word Count:

Reviews In This Series

The Omen (Donner, 1976)
Damien: Omen II (Taylor, 1978)
Omen III: The Final Conflict (Baker, 1981)