Category: Lamberto Bava

The Prince of Terror (1988)

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What does a family man do when he’s pushed to the limit by a pair of home invading lunatics? How far will he go to protect his wife and daughter? Will society turn a blind eye to the retribution he seeks after getting a prank phone call that makes fun of his last name? What sort of payback is justified when his toilet is clogged up with the script from his latest movie?

These are just some of the heavy-duty nut scratching philosophical questions horror director Lamberto Bava poses in this Italian TV movie about a horror director who is shooting what looks to be an Italian TV movie. But could questions so fundamental be possibly addressed in such a piece of entertainment so trashy that one actress starts talking about orgasms at the dinner table while a child is present? Continue reading “The Prince of Terror (1988)” →

Monster Shark (1984)

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It was touch and go for awhile, but in the end Monster Shark persevered and got the win. Oh, I don’t mean he beat his human assailants. He got his prehistoric ass torched by an army of flamethrowers because we decided blowing him up wasn’t good enough. I mean that Monster Shark got more kills than the humans did.

Shockingly for a movie about an evil rampaging sea monster, the humans were killing each other at the same clip as that crusty old barnacle of a hideous beast was. It wasn’t until the very end when he wracked up a bunch of cheap kills during the final showdown that he pulled out the win. Continue reading “Monster Shark (1984)” →

Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil (1989)

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A lot of crappy stuff happens to David on his ski vacation from hell. He and his friends fall through a crevice into an ice cavern where his old lady suffers a broken leg. One of his friends gets impaled on something or other. His other friends get possessed and cause all sorts of mischief. He stabs either his girlfriend or an ancient witch to death or both. And he even has to put up with a blind priest’s crabby dog!

Worst of all by far though is when he sees some haunted boobies shrivel up right before his very eyes, going from pert, perky, and perfect to withered, wasted, and woeful! Continue reading “Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil (1989)” →

Shock (1977)

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ShockPosterDora, her son Marco, and her new husband Bruno (is this a mob family or something?) are moving into a new house. Except that it isn’t a new house at all. It’s the same house that Dora used to live in when she was married to her first husband. But he committed suicide. And she ended up in the insane asylum. Other than that though, I’m sure it has a lot of great memories for her. Continue reading “Shock (1977)” →

Demons III: The Ogre (1988)

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As soon as Demons III: The Ogre cranked up and got past the standard “nightmare” prologue involving a little girl mucking around in a spooky basement and running into something sinister and I saw Tom and Cheryl and their little boy in a car in the Italian countryside, I began flashbacking to any number of other Italian horror flicks. If it’s one thing I’ve learned about Italy from all these movies, it’s that they don’t have Holiday Inns or Mariotts. They have haunted castles. And lots of them. Continue reading “Demons III: The Ogre (1988)” →

Demons 2 (1986)

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When we last saw the demons, they had begun their plot to take over the world by overrunning a free showing of a cheesy Italian horror movie at one of the local theaters in Berlin. The movie ended with the city beset by all sorts of demons-related violence and the survivors of the movie theater assault were headed off in a jeep to find safety in the country.

It would be safe to assume then that Demons 2 would turn it up a notch and depict the epic clash between man and demon as they battled for control of the entire world, right? Uh, no, but would you settle for a bunch of demons overrunning an apartment building? What if I told you that the apartment building had a weight room? Continue reading “Demons 2 (1986)” →

A Blade in the Dark (1983)

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Director Lamberto Bava (Demons) supposedly emulates some of father Mario Bava‘s most famous films and tries to incorporate some of their themes into this movie. I know this because I read the liner notes by Tim Lucas, not because I was able to discern any of that from the film itself. The best thing in this movie though turns out not to be something he cribbed from his daddy, but from Lucio Fulci! Continue reading “A Blade in the Dark (1983)” →