In honor of the release of my favorite band's new album, I decided to watch Evil Clutch today. That band, for the record, would be Clutch. Psychic Warfare came out today, and I have to say it's pretty darned great. Generally speaking, it takes a while for albums to grow on me, but there are a couple tunes on there that are already all-timers.
Although the "clutch" in Evil Clutch seems to imply a grasp - as in being in clutches of evil. And that's pretty evident, because it takes no time at all for a guy to get his dick ripped off by the clutch of a giant bird claw coming out from between the legs of our main zombie/vampire woman. So at least it starts "strong." But as for the rest of it? Well, this screen-cap sums it up nicely:
I mean, it's an Italian horror movie, so you don't necessarily expect the most coherent story telling. But other than "there's Evil here," I really couldn't figure out what was happening or why. But here's what I've got: New couple Cindy (an American tourist in Italy) and full-blooded Italian Tony (his accent is awesome to listen to!) are on a trip through the Italian countryside. A woman runs out in front of their car and says she's been attacked (but we're hip to her lies, since we saw her do some dick-ripping in the opening scene). So they give her a ride to town, which is strangely abandoned. EXCEPT for some weirdo on a motorcycle, who uses an electronic-voicebox thing to talk with. But the very sight of him causes Evil Lady to run away. For some reason, Cindy and Tony don't care. They follow him down into the woods, where he tells them horrific stories about things that *may* happen to them - he's a horror writer, you see. But Cindy and Tony are like "I don't like hearing your gross stories" and tell him off. Then they go camping.
They run into Evil Lady and she tells them they shouldn't camp in these woods because it's dangerous. (Bearing in mind, they don't know she's Evil yet.) But she knows a house nearby, where they can go safely spend the night. So they go there, find some strange black goo, are attacked by a zombie, and eventually find out that Evil Lady is bad news.
So... yeah. There isn't really any way to write about this without spoiling some of the cool shit that happens. So if you happen to be inclined to enjoy WTF Italian cinema and like to be surprised, the following two paragraphs will be spoiling some of the choice moments. I mean, Evil Clutch is not a must see, but there's enough wackiness that it's a pretty good time.
There's never really any explanation as to who or what or why any of these people/demons/whatever do what they do. But that complete vagueness is kind of part of the fun. I mean, the "best" traditional storytelling in the film is over the opening credits, where we learn a little bit about Tony and Cindy's relationship while they do a voiceover over some polaroid photographs.
It's the sort of film where the first half is pretty quiet - but the strange characters and goodbad dubbing carry you through. And once the S. hits the F. things get pretty crazy and splattery. It's never all that well done, but it's just really odd and fun and strangely charming. I mean, at one point our heroine is being chased and just *finds* a chainsaw. Convenient. She manages to off one person with it before it runs out of gas. Also, if anyone knows where you can get a cuckoo clock that spits blood, let me know. Cindy "never misses a sunset," but for some reason that means she sits outside alone until it's the middle of the night. Tony gets his hands cut off, and Cindy's solution is to "go find fresh water." Severed heads just explode for no reason. It's all good!
The negatives? It's a dark film - not in tone, just that it's often poorly lit and difficult to see exactly what is going on. Also, I came across a review on imdb that said it's a huge ripoff of Evil Dead. I can see that. I liked that movie, but haven't seen it in ages. But Evil Clutch does refer to their zombie-things and "evil dead" and seems to be going for the same gory/funny vibe that Evil Dead 2 had. And there is a tree/tentacle thing - it's not quite as rough as the one in Raimi's film, but it's hard not notice the comparisons. The monsters in Clutch have vampire teeth - at least that's different, right? Also, it's SUPER screamy towards the end. I would say there are full five minute segments that are just Cindy screaming. And really, the sound in general is just unsubtle. It's a very squishy sounding movie - anytime someone has stuff coming out of their mouths (which happens a lot), or there is a really gory scene, the soundtrack really ups it with the liquidy sounds.
So it's hard to outright recommend Evil Clutch. It's sloppy in both filmmaking and gore, but it made me smile on several occasions and I'm definitely glad I watched it. It's certainly not for everyone, but if "weirdo, cheap, Italian Evil Dead [ahem] homage" makes you perk up a bit, it may be worth checking out.
I would conditionally recommend this film.
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