Abbreviated Entry...
So most of June has been pretty brutal for me schedule-wise. Big Time Life Events™ of close family members (weddings/funerals/reunions) have conspired to make the movie-every-day thing rather difficult. I've still managed to watch one every day, but the end result of everything life has thrown my way is that I'm as exhausted as I've ever been. So to keep my sanity (and this blog going), I'm going to do things a bit differently for a little while - I watched the movies, but rather than the standard entry, I'll just do a little synopsis, a little imdb research, quote some of the reviews (can you do that?) and bounce off of them. Followed up by my general impressions.
Okay, thanks!
The Embalmer
A vicious masked man (in a scuba suit) is killing random women, picking them off of the streets of Venice and bringing them to his lair, hidden in the tunnels beneath the cities' famous waterways. Once he gets them down there, he embalms them... so they "stay beautiful forever" and become a permanent part of his collection. Cops in Venice are apparently totally inept, so it's up to a reporter to figure out what's going on and (hopefully) catch the killer.
This movie obviously makes very little sense--there has got to be an easier way to procure victims than donning a scuba outfit and pulling them out of gondolas, and for some reason the character dresses up in a robe and skeleton mask like the Phantom of the Opera even when he is alone in his hideout.... Of course, this movie doesn't offer the nudity or violence many Italian exploitation connoisseurs might expect (and it's in black and white), but it's still a worthwhile little film.
-Thanks "lazarillo" via imdb
This is pretty spot on. While it's not agressively confusing like some Italian horror, you kind of have to roll with the punches in terms of characters' motivations/etc. Unfortunately, I thought the mystery angle (who is the embalmer?) is not resolved in a really satisfying way. But still, the fun is getting there. There isn't as much craziness as you might expect (hope for?) from Italian horror, but there is still some nice stylistic flourishes here and there (my favorite being the freeze frame on all of the killer's potential victims). The black and white photography works in the film's favor - the city of Venice looks nice and is really a cool spot to shoot a horror movie. Plus the B&W photography gives the movie a unique visual hook - if this was shot in color it would have a sort of "been there, done that" look that you see in a lot of proto-giallos.
This is not a great movie, but it's reasonably good, I think (and certainly not overlong)... The cinematography is never particularly exceptional, but serviceable... it was surprising how brutal the movie was with regard to who it was willing to kill off, while the movie lacked scenes of explicit violence.
-Thanks "FieCrier" via imdb
The Embalmer is a pretty quick watch, really. It's not particularly action-packed or anything, but it moves along at a good clip and never really feels boring. The technical aspects of the film certainly won't blow you away, but it's decently shot and looks all right, at least as far as the Pure Terror Budget Set goes.
It would probably be fair to say that the movie does meander a bit in the early stages, while the dubbing is particularly atrocious. But these factors are outweighed by some well conceived suspenseful moments. The final twenty minutes in particular are very good...
-Thanks "Red-Barracuda" via imdb
I don't know, I've always found bad dubbing kind of charming. It's one of the things that I've always enjoyed about Italian horror imports, and it helped make The Embalmer a little more fun. And it definitely ends on a high note - the final chase scenes in the killer's lair are the best parts of the film, and it's really not even close.
Overall, I dug The Embalmer. It's certainly no hidden gem, but it's fun and fast paced enough that it's worth a look, provided you aren't expecting any crazy gore or lunacy that you sometimes get from horror imports of the mid-60's.
I would recommend this film.
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