Umberto Lenzi may be remembered for his outrageous horror atrocities such as the excellent exploitative CANNIBAL FEROX, or EATEN ALIVE, and NIGHTMARE CITY, but for some of us, his powerful themes and cinematic cynicism really prevail within his gialli and crime films from the 70s. Following up the great crime drama GANG WAR IN MILAN and the ultra weird giallo SPASMO, Lenzi hit upon his most pessimistic work yet with ALMOST HUMAN, a tour de force of perverted crime and horror filled with no hope or shame. With an excellent cast, including Tomas Milian, Ray Lovelock, Gino Santercole, and Henry Silva, plus the effective screenwriting of Ernesto Gastaldi, what could go wrong? Well, for the victims of the story, lots, but for the rest of us Eurocinemaphiles, it’s pure gold.
Milian plays Sacchi, a down on his luck criminal who decides to take the bull by its balls. At first, he seems all talk, but he really is a psychotic madman. His plan is simple. He will kidnap a rich daughter and get a hefty ransom, and then kill the girl in order to escape capture when all is done. Unfortunately, the plan isn’t failsafe, as he leads a bloody trail wherever he goes. Without any remorse to chisel away at his ego, nobody is getting away unscathed. After kidnapping Mary Lou (Laura Belli) and killing her boyfriend in the process, Milian and his cohorts Vittorio (Gino Santercole) and Carmine (Ray Lovelock) end up hiding out at a rich estate. It’s here that everyone gets a real taste of Sacchi’s brutality. He proceeds to humiliate the inhabitants of the house. Before leaving, the thugs manage to strip the females, hang everyone up on a chandelier and play human roulette before gunning down a child and the rest of the household in cold blood.
Hot on their trail is the unusually subdued Henry Silva as Inspector Walter Grandi. Confounded by the brutality behind the murders and the kidnapping, Grandi tries to put the pieces together. This leads him to Sacchi’s girlfriend Iona Tucci (the excellent Anita Strindberg) who has become a victim at the hands of her abusive lover. Fortunately for Grandi, he has had tie-ins with Sacchi before and brings him in for questioning. Actually, Sacchi brings himself in, pretending to look for his missing girlfriend in order to throw off suspicion. Grandi’s hands become tied because of a lack of evidence and internal bureaucracy, despite Sacchi’s cockiness and obvious guilt.
In fact, it’s Sacchi’s cockiness that gets the better of him. While his logic makes sense in a twisted sort of way, his actions become unsound. The thugs hide the girl out in a barge (tormenting her along the way in some very brutal moments), only a few hundred yards from the final ransom drop-off. The logic is the police won’t expect everyone to be right under their noses. But when you leave a trail of bodies all around for the police to find, especially when they are watching you to begin with, it doesn’t take long before the thief gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
What really works for Lenzi’s ALMOST HUMAN is the tone. The plot isn’t terribly difficult and is even predictable by today’s standards, especially for Eurocrime fans. From the stereotypical police inspector with his hands tied by plot contrivances, to the ruthless killer on the loose, it’s simple fare. What’s left is the execution, and Lenzi and his cast pull it off in spades. In fact, I’d be bold enough to say that ALMOST HUMAN could have been the prototype for Mario Bava’s RABID DOGS. The parallels are uncanny. The atmosphere and brutality is identical in delivery. This is basically one nihilistic and fucked up film. Milian carries the film all the way with exaggerated nuances and an immoral attitude that is uneasy for the viewer to watch and looks downright sadistic on the screen. His motivations all seem to be someone else’s fault, but it’s his character that insists on pulling the trigger or sticking in the knife. His pleasure is to gleefully blame everything on the pain that society and others have forcefully thrust upon him. It’s never his fault. Of course, the rest of the cast, especially Anita Strindberg, does an incredible job, but as stated, this is definitely Milian’s movie all the way.
No Shame Films is quickly becoming one of my favorite DVD labels. If you like Eurocrime and Lenzi’s work, then this is an excellent place to start if you’ve never checked out one of their releases. The transfer is excellent, sporting a high definition remastered 2.35:1 letterboxed 16X9 enhanced ratio with Dolby Digital Mono sound that boasts the soundtrack quite well. The Italian version with optional English subtitles and the English dubbed version are both available. Extras include several interviews with Umberto Lenzi, Ray Lovelock, Gino Santercole, Ernesto Gastaldi, and a separate 30-minute interview with Tomas Milian. Their affection for ALMOST HUMAN runs parallel, but its interesting to hear the differences how things went 30 years ago, depending on each person’s memory of events. Rounding out the extras are a poster and still gallery, a collectable booklet with liner notes and talent bios, and both the original Italian trailer and international trailer. The trailers show alternate scenes that are more graphic than the movie presented here, with cameras zooming into machine gun bullet wounds, detailing more gore and some extra moments that represent even seedier and grittier sexually charged moments. Needless to say, the transfer is uncut, but it’s obvious that Lenzi originally filmed more than what ended up in the final print. This suggests the film was either too grim even for Lenzi’s tastes, or it was more than the original censors would allow, or Lenzi’s exploitative genius was working overtime in the marketing arena. I’d guess all three played a final role.
Overall, being an Italian Crime Cinema fan, I have no problem recommending ALMOST HUMAN to likewise fans. Those that put RABID DOGS, LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN, and TO BE TWENTY high up on their must own lists would benefit from picking up No Shame’s disc sight unseen. It definitely ranks up there with the best and/or most cynical films in European Cinema.