WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
As you all know from reading previous articles, there is no conclusion to these articles so I always give my overall opinion at the beginning. I usually talk about what each country does so well but this time, I’m not too sure what the Italians do so well with horror films as I honestly did not find any of the ones I watched at all scary…
The Doll of Satan
For me, this does not feel like a horror film. Truthfully at one point I thought it was starting to go that way and was a little bit confused about the type of film it was trying to be but it turned out I was wrong. For all intents and purposes, this is a film about one person trying to gaslight another so they can get hold of their property. If the visions Elizabeth have were in anyway influenced by some sort of supernatural entity or being, I would think it was a pretty good horror film, but this isn’t what happens and I found it rather annoying. I see no reason for this to called The Doll of Satan because this, in some way, could imply satanism or cultist themes and there are none.
The Paganini Horror
Do you know what annoyed me about this film? The dubbing! It was originally released in Italian so I would’ve been happy with subtitles. However, by looks of it – it was also released in English but for some reason they still decided to dub it with American accents. What’s wrong with the Italian accent? Especially as this is an Italian film! I started off wanting to describe this film as a supernatural-slasher film but I’m not too certain that that would be correct. I do think however that they may have overstated it when they said their song opened a portal to hell when only one spirit escapes to terrorize them. The one thing that kept bugging me though was the relevance of the opening scene – until the end of course.
The Museum of Wonders
From beginning to end, there really is only one word that can describe this film: WEIRD! I don’t mean in a ‘What the F*** did I just see’ kind of weird, I just mean weird. I feel like the director was trying to make more of an art piece than a horror film because there is absolutely nothing scary about it unless you still find ‘freaks’ scary in this day and age. The ending is possibly the closest this film comes to being a horror film in my opinion but it’s slightly more gross than scary.
The Supernatural
I honestly could not tell if this was supposed to be a found-footage film or that it was filmed this way because it is an independent. I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel like nothing happens. They keep saying ‘Did you hear that?’ ‘What made that noise?’ (in Italian of course…) but at no point did I hear anything. I didn’t even see the lights that they claim to see. Yes, there’s a face at the window for a split second but it wasn’t enough to make me jump. The film is only an hour and 16 minutes but its an hour and 16 minutes of nothing in my opinion.
The Beyond
Once again, like Paganini Horror I’ve ended up finding a dubbed version of this film – that didn’t need to be dubbed! Unless my eyes deceive me, the actors are clearly speaking English anyway so why the dubbing? Truthfully I would have rather found the original Italian release but I have to work with what I’ve got. This is one of the films I would have covered if I continued the ‘video nasty’ section of this blog and I can see why because certain parts are so realistic and gross that I actually felt physically sick (not as bad as the remake of Blood Feast but still). This film actually follows the trope of the Harbinger character in the blind girl Emily – and as always, the lead character doesn’t listen to her.
Word of warning, if you have arachnophobia maybe fast forward through the scene with the tarantulas? If you don’t have it already, you might do after this film…
Custodes
In my opinion, this is the type of film I expected from The Doll of Satan. Now I’m not saying that it’s a better film – because I was equally unimpressed by both of them but this one definitely has its good moments. As you know, I love films with a small cast but this really wasn’t one of the best and the outcome ended up being a little bit predictable for me. However, in saying that, it set the tone very well. The use of tribal music and drums had my heart racing at times and the way Lucilla dances is a little bit creepy but other than that the film really lacked something that I can’t quite put my finger on.
