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Under discussion:

Until Death  (1987)

Bava made a series of television movies in the late 80’s and this is one of them. It’s extremely rare and is quite a find for fans of obscure Italian horror! Linda is an unfaithful wife to her husband Luca; she’s also pregnant with his child. Linda and her lover Carlo kill Luca and bury him in the woods where, they hope, nobody will ever find him. Several years pass without incident but one night a stranger, Marco, shows up looking for a place to stay. Linda’s son suffers from nightmares of Luca coming back from the dead, Carlo the scumbag wants to be rid of Marco from the moment he arrives, Linda is attracted to the stranger and his unexplainable familiarity, and Marco… he has plans of his own! Strange events start to take place and it isn’t long before everyone realizes the power of the promise… Until Death do we part! Co-written by Dardano Sacchetti, Until Death contains eye-catching cinematography, a tight script, strong performances, and no small amount of suspense!

Here comes one of the most sought after and highly regarded movies in all of Italian crime cinema… Weapons of Death! Just about everybody who manages to see it becomes a loyal fan and many feel that it’s the summation of everything great about the genre! Leonard Mann is a cop trying to do the best job he can in the city of Naples, but it’s never easy, especially with high profile criminals like Henry Silva around! Silva manages to anger everybody from the local law enforcement all the way to his fellow underworld crime kingpins. Driven by blinding greed Silva is only getting started when he puts together a plan to rob a money train in broad daylight while it’s still full of passengers! He wants to go as far as he can and with as much as he can carry! No life has enough value to slow him down! There is no remorse in this seemingly soulless shell of a man who will destroy anyone who attempts to deter him! Mann, as tough a customer as he always was, is not about to just sit by and watch the criminals take over the streets, not by a long shot. This has got to be the single most violent Italian crime film of the seventies! Bloody shootings, beatings, face smashing, burnings, castration, and a decapitation are among the acts of malicious interpersonal destruction you’ll find throughout! The best thing about all of this is that Weapons of Death has the ability to back it up with something that matters! Aside from the strength of the writing (not to mention the performances - Mann shines as usual), the excellent cinematography and editing come together with effortless fluidity to capture the cityscapes of Napoli in all their beauty thanks to the talents of Pier Luigi Santi and Vincenzo Tomassi respectively. A soundtrack that must rank amongst the finest courtesy of the great Francesco De Masi is a memorably affecting gift to all of us and the aforementioned graphic goings-on are the handiwork of none other than Gino De Rossi himself! A truly impressive movie that’s everything you’ve heard it is and more.

Carol and her brother Ed are heading to a house they recently inherited from their parents. It’s supposed to be a vacation, a chance to relax and recover from losing their Father and Mother, so they bring a bunch of friends along. It turns out that the house they are staying in was once owned by a witch who was tortured and burned at the stake a long time ago. The young daughter of the witch committed suicide shortly after that incident. Many of the women are soon possessed by an evil force causing them to sexually torment and then butcher the males one by one. There is only one hope, an aging priest who knew the witch before she was evil. Blood splatters often thanks to the creative use of an axe, a meat cleaver, a nasty piece of farm equipment, and a chainsaw!