Macabre is somehow kind of boring and kind of great at the same time. It's a mostly slow moving thriller that occasionally tests your patience, but when you look back at the whole shebang there's no doubt it works. It's got a sort of plodding but tension-filled feel to it - while there aren't any super tense scenes, there is just this underlying feeling that something terrible is going to happen. It's an interestingly structured film - the opening ten-fifteen minutes are pretty horrific, and then things slow down and stay that way until the last ten-fifteen minutes. But you spend most of the time feeling confident that the film will get back to the peak established earlier - it's just a matter of how (and when) it's going to get there. And ultimately, Macabre doesn't let you down.
It's hard to get into too much without spoiling that first part... and it works better if you go in cold. So if "moody early 80's Italian slow burn" is your thing, best ignore the rest of this. Also, it's the feature film debut of Lamberto Bava (Mario's son), who also directed Demons, Demons 2, and, uh... Devil Fish. Fair warning though - it's pretty straight-forward (i.e isn't as bugnuts as some of Bava's contemporaries) and doesn't have as much atmospheric moodiness as you might expect from a film with the Bava name attached to it.
Macabre focuses on Jane Baker (Bernice Stegers) - a married mother of two who wastes little time in letting the audience know that she is terribly excited to cheat on her husband. Her very first lines of the film (I think) are her setting up a time to go discreetly meet her lover Frank. Her daughter Lucy is onto her and manages to track her down, calling her at the apartment where she is engaged in her tryst. Oh, and Lucy is also a fucking psycho, because she drowns her little brother (!) when mom left them alone to go be with Frank. It's unclear if this was in retaliation to her cheating mother, or if she's just insane. But Lucy knows enough to call her mom and tell her there's been an accident. Jane and Frank go rushing to her house, but en route there is a horrible accident, and Frank is killed. So poor Jane has has a tough day - not only has her son tragically died (in an "accident"), but her lover has as well. Not only that, but her marriage is effectively over. It's enough to break anyone, and Jane is sent to a mental care facility.
One year later, Jane is released and heads back to her old apartment - the same place where she met Frank on that fateful day. It's really just a room in a large house. It's unclear how this whole thing is set up - I think the house belongs to Frank's family, but she rents out a room? At any rate, the only person left in the house if Frank's brother Robert, who happens to be blind. So the house is mostly messy and dark, but she's appreciative of the room Robert has set aside for her. She says that he'll "hardly even know that she's there" - although she's apparently forgotten to add the disclaimer "except when I'm furiously masturbating at night." Seriously, the sound carries in the house, and I'd think a blind man would be even more likely to notice the sounds coming from her room. But is she actually alone? Or is someone visiting her? Either way, it's a shady ass situation. And when Jane's crazy daughter and ex-husband are reintroduced into her life, it can only mean trouble...
So Macabre doesn't play out like a totally plot-driven tale; there aren't a lot of twists and turns or backstabbings or anything like that. It's mostly straightforward, but after you see a little girl drown her brother in the opening fifteen minutes, you kind of know that this is a film that isn't afraid to go dark. There is undoubtedly a lull in the middle part of the film, but the time is passed by introducing us to Robert (Stanko Molnar), who plays a sort of audience surrogate. As the only other person in Jane's house, he's just as unsure as to what is going on as we are. Molnar plays the blind Robert convincingly, and gives you someone to root for in the film - while Jane is undoubtedly the main character, you never really feel a lot of sympathy for her. But it's a well-acted film all around; Stegers is really quite good as the tortured Jane... she strikes just the right balance of delicate and tragic and sad and assholish. The film simply would not work if you didn't buy into her character, and Stegers does a great job making Jane feel realistic.
Stylistically, there isn't a lot to latch onto. Director Lamberto Bava certainly isn't trying to ape his father Mario's style, and it's not a really noteworthy film visually. But I'd still say it's well constructed. The house at the center of it all is shot in all of its messy glory - it's not supposed to look pretty. You're dealing with characters who have all been damaged in some way, and the sets and camera work reflect that.
It's hard to get into anything else without getting too spoilery. There isn't a lot by way of gore or your typical late 70s/early 80s horror stuff - if you go in looking for hack and slash or even a typical whodunit you'll be disappointed. But horrorwise, what you do get works - and is surprisingly disturbing. Macabre is really kind of a hard-edged family-drama/mystery, bookended by some nastiness and a little WTF'ery. If you can get into a kind of slow-paced film with a mean streak, Macabre will reward you for your patience.
I would recommend this film.
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