StageFright (1987), The Church (1989), and Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
Most horror fans know of the Italian horror genre, if not being huge fans of it in general. From Bava, Fulci, Argento, D’Amato, and the rest, they have helped the Italian horror genre be one of the biggest output of classic films for over three decades. And then in the mid ’90s, it bottomed out. But thankfully for us fans, at the end at that “era of terror”, we got four horror films from a young director named Michele Soavi. From starting his career as an actor, helping him getting on set and moving his way up to assistant director to finally calling “action” himself. He’s worked under the tutelage of directors like Joe D’Amato, Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava, and Dario Argento, all working to form his own identity as a director.
In this episode, we’re covering 3 out of the 4 of his titles, which should give you reason to seek them out if you’ve never seen them before or maybe bust them out once again for a revisit. Because sometimes we can forget just how damn good they are.
Films mentioned in this episode:
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The first time I watched this film, it was from a bootleg VHS tape, several generations down from the original source, in Italian with no sub-titles. I was very familiar with the director, being a huge fan of his first three films, and was very excited to see his latest, even if it meant watching it under these particular circumstances. And it didn’t matter. Soavi’s use of the camera, the look and feel of the film, and giving us something like we hadn’t seen before, even though I might not have understood exactly what was going on, I still loved it. Soon, I would upgrade my copy to another crappy looking tape, but this time in English. Then a great looking one, but back to Italian. Then finally splurging the money and acquiring the actual Japanese laserdisc, which has one of the best covers to date, which you can see to the right.
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