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Reviews
Conquest (1983)
Fulci's career-killer.
In an unnamed pre-historic land, a gold-masked sorceress named Ocron (Sabrina Siani) rules all evil. A young archer (Andrea Occhipinti), equipped with a magic bow-and-arrow, sets out to kill her, teaming up with a hardened, animal-loving muscleman (George Rivero) along the way...
This was the first movie Fulci made after breaking his assocation with Fabrizio De Angelis, and is recognised as the one that would stop his career in its tracks. Fulci's quarrels with producer Giovanni De Clemente really show through on screen, with some particularly cheap special-effects and mangy-looking monsters.
To his credit, Fulci tries hard to work up an atmosphere (orange skies, fog, green mossy plains), but gives up towards the end. Some scenes are just plain stupid, such as the wolfmen attacks (they look like Dulux hounds!) and Rivero rescued from drowning by dolphins. As with his earlier CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG, the sheer nastiness of what goes on weighs against the fantastical, magical backdrop Fulci was trying to create. But FANG had lovely locations, good acting, a pacey storyline and excellent photography to fall back on.
Gore fans do get their money's worth, however. An old man's brain is exposed after receiving a cranial axe-blow, Ocron whacking open a severed head to feast on its brains, various gore-spewing arrow hits, zombies being staked, several graphic burnings, and Ocron's heart blown out after receiving a laser-bolt to her chest. Not forgetting the notorious 'wishbone' sequence, where a naked girl is spread-eagled until she splits right up the middle.
Of course, many video-releases are cut, including the UK and Dutch tapes. Go for the Belgian or Greek release, they're both uncut and LBXed. That is, of course, if you care!
It's not surprising that the Italian spate of CONAN rip-offs only lasted about a year. This unimaginative effort, which is adequate at best, is actually one of the BETTER rip-offs. You don't even want to know what Lenzi's IRON MASTER and Tonino Ricci's THOR THE CONQUEROR are like!
I quattro dell'Apocalisse (1975)
One of the best Spaghetti westerns.
Utah, 1873. A young card-sharp named Stubby Preston arrives in a small town called Salt Flat. On his arrival, the town sheriff (Donald O'Brien) throws him in jail with 3 petty criminals - a pregnant prostitute (Frederick), a hopeless drunk (Pollard) and a mad black slave (Baird). That night, KKK-masked gunmen wipe out most of the town, and the next night, the four are put on a cart and forced out of town, into the bandit-filled wilds. One such bandit (Tomas Milian) forces himself upon the group, soon revealing himself to be a wicked sadist. After kneecapping Pollard, raping Frederick and torturing the other two, Testi swears revenge if he is left alive. Milian heads off, and the four characters set out to follow their dreams and destinies - in Testi's case, a slow, violent death for the bandit...
This unusual, horror-tinged effort suffers from slow pace and some awful music ballads, as well as Frederick phony Transatlantic accent. Where it does score highly, is in the 'feel' of the film. Sergio Salvati's photography is superb, and really presents the Old West as a desolate wasteland where only the most ruthless will survive. Also, Milian's villain is superbly evil, and there are some excellent action sequences, such as the opening purge of the town, and Testi's score-settle.
Some of the violence is truly shocking, and all prints of the film were cut down - Milian gouging into a man's stomach with a knife after pinning a sheriff's badge into his chest (commonly seen in stills), and some of Frederick's harrowing rape ordeal.
Don't get the Swedish Sun Video entitled 'CHACO' - it's heavily cut down. This version misses out some gory bullet-hits at the start, much of Milian's torturous antics (including him stamping Testi's testicles), and Testi cutting Milian's face open with a razor. The most complete version available at present (though it still misses out the pre-studio cuts described above), is the Japanese AT International tape.
Even with what does remain, it's a nihilistic, grim piece of work, and remains one of the most violent of the Spagwests. It's a shame that Fulci, after this and the excellent MASSACRE TIME, would disgrace himself with his third western effort, the limp SILVERSADDLE.
Rolls Royce Baby (1975)
A good, revealing non-Franco vehicle for Lina Romay.
Swiss director Erwin C. Dietrich is responsible for producing some of Franco's best movies, including JACK THE RIPPER, FRAUENGEFANGIS, and TROPICAL INFERNO, but as a director, manages to be more consistently enjoyable than Franco. His gore-sodden, laugh-riot biker thriller MAD FOXES, the near-hardcore WIP exploiter CAGED WOMEN, and NIGHT OF THE FEMALE COLONEL - the latter two starring Brigitte Lahaie - are well worth a look. So is this one, even if it is quite repetitive to watch, being not that much more than your usual hardcore filth. The plot, or what counts as one, involves a young woman (Romay, who looks stunning here) who gets humiliated by two crude long-distance truckers whilst hitch-hiking. After they've both had their way with her, they throw her out of the truck and keep her clothes.
She becomes rich and famous, thanks to a fortuitous movie-role. The incident is still very much on her mind, and she apends her days reversing the role she played. Picking up numerous lucky sods in the back of her Rolls Royce, and satisfying herself on them, she drives off and moves onto the next.
Dietrich regular Eric Falk plays her chauffeur, and almost steals the show with his scenes of intense, straight-into-the-camera kung-fu, clad in a pair of disappearing karate trousers. These are the standouts of the movie, as is the sequence where the truck-driver gets a fit of the giggles watching Romay get off with his mate.
The rest of the film concentrates on hardcore couplings, but these are very nicely-shot in bright yellow and greens, mirroring the countryside where Romay's character lives. Most hardcore movies get more than a little tedious with their repetitiveness, and this one is no exception, but at least Dietrich has the good sense to throw in a lot of humour.
Any movie that has Lina Romay brushing her pubes in close-up can't be all bad, can it?