Messalina, Messalina!

Partly due to the fact that it was Italian, partly because of the title, partly because it also starred Lori Wagner and Anneka Di Lorenzo, and partly because it used sets leftover from the Tinto Brass epic, I fully expected 'Messalina, Messalina!' to be a gratuitously sleazy rip-off of the infamous 'Caligula', in the vein of Bruno Mattei's 'Caligula and Messalina' or Joe D'Amato's 'Caligula 2: The Untold Story'.

I certainly didn't expect a desperately unfunny sex/comedy with dreadful slapstick humour, awful dubbing (Messalina sounds like Mae West!), wacky characters and the occasional fart joke. Which is a shame, 'cos that's (almost) exactly what I got!

Messalina (Anneka Di Lorenzo), wife of Emperor Claudius, is an insatiable nymphomaniac who screws all and sundry behind her husband's back. When she meets hunky Gaius Silius (Lino Toffolo), who somehow resists her sexual advances, she becomes determined to get him in the sack—even if it means conspiring to overthrow Claudius.

Despite plenty of nudity from Di Lorenzo, an hour into this laugh-free mess of a movie and I was tempted to turn the film off to save myself twenty minutes more suffering. But I struggled on, and, to be honest, I was actually glad that I did because, ten minutes before the end, the whole shebang gets a whole lot more entertaining, with a scene of OTT gore that (almost) makes watching the film worthwhile.

In the blood-drenched finale, the Praetorian guard are sent to massacre Messalina and her cohorts, and the result is a surprisingly fun ending to an otherwise execrable film. People are hacked to pieces, and blood sprays all over the place; with body parts everywhere and the floor covered in blood, this moment reminded me of the 'lawnmower' sequence in Peter Jackson's Braindead.

It's just a shame that in order to get to it, I had to subject myself to so much dross.

As a rule, the inclusion of hot nekkid chicks will (almost) always guarantee that a film will not get 1/10 from me, but 'Messalina, Messalina!' was shaping up to be an exception to that rule. However, thanks to the outrageous and messy gore in the closing moments, it winds up getting 3/10. All hail messy gore!

first off-don't expect anything to do with the original caligula. this is an italian comedy version which uses left over sets from that production. messalina is the emperor of romes wife and spends much of the film in a variety of sex scenes. there is a lot of genuinely funny parts in this film-mainly due to the truly awful english dubbing. before seeing this film i was unaware that romans spoke with strong american accents and called each other babe! to top it all off the film ends with a long gore scene which was very surprising although this too is done in a humorous way. this is worth picking up if you see the dvd for sale cheap although beware-the picture quality of the dvd is pretty crummy.

How in God's name do you review a film like Messalina²? Purely seen from an objective viewpoint, this has got to be one of the worst movies ever made and, if you swear by quality-cinema like Citizen Kane, this film is most likely to cause you a heart attack. But on the other hand, I don't really see a reason to bash this production entirely. It's obvious that Messalina doesn't aim for being a masterpiece, as it was made by a bunch of nutballs disposing over some leftover sets and scenery of a previously made film about the Roman Empire. This film actually is a spoof ahead of its time. The jokes and unsubtle references aren't very funny, but it all becomes hilarious because of its cheapness. The characters are extremely stupid and the humor is pure slapstick (some of the fart jokes here even outshine the Zucker bros. films). The inferior plot merely handles about the infamous Empress Messalina. While her husband Claudius does whatever he can to make the people of Rome like him, she screws around with every male that comes in her sight. There absolutely is no continuity in this film and the acting is painfully bad. Yet, it is the light-headed and goofy atmosphere (along with the sleazy acts of Di Lorenzi) that prevents you from turning it off. There's a massacre-sequence near the end that has to be seen to be believed. If you're in to eccentric exploitation adventures, this is your thing. All the rest: avoid!

Italian comedies from the 1970s can best be compared as a hotchpotch of the „Carry On"-films and slapstick ala „Naked Gun": fast talking, grimacing, physical comedy – basically, it's the old "man steps on a rake"-joke, over and over again. "Messalina, Messalina" is not exception from the norm, with the exception, that the film contains more nudity. Lots and lots of nudity and, the film being all about the Empress Messalina cheating on her husband, Emperor Claudius (the successor of Emperor Caligula, so don't be fooled by the alternative title "Caligula 2"), some of the sex-scenes, depending on the copy you own, trespassing from soft- to hardcore.

Among the most popular spaghetti-comedies, were those featuring Bud Spencer and Terence Hill – the Italian version of Laurel and Hardy, if you so want. There's no Spencer and no Hill in this film (both, presumably, having fought tooth and nail against appearing in a film like "Messalina, Messalina"). Instead, we get Thomas Milan and Bombolo. Both go through the routine, but it's never more than that: routine.

In addition to the gratious nudity, the film features a battle-scene, which has enough gore and limb-hacking to rival the violence of "Gladiator". Interesting trivia: much of the set and costumes (not to mention some of the actors like Lori Wagner and Anneka Di Lorenzo) have been borrowed from the set of Bob Guccione's "Caligula", so for fans of this notorious epic, the film remains worthwhile curiosity with an eerie sense of Deja-Vu.

In essence, the film has very few qualities worth mentioning … unless, of course, you're a fan of flat Italian comedy or came here for the nekkid girls.

3/10

I like 1970s sexploitation like the best of them. Nudity, violence, an historic setting, a baseline plot ....all supposed to be here. The boxing and the reviews therefore led me to rip open the DVD box "Messalina" and "Messalina 2" with some excitement.

Sadly this flick just flatlines. It is a series of poorly connected scenes with an occasional soft-core pop up thrown in. The nudity is actually very modest. There is no violence (contextural or gratuitous)- only a jarring comical edge. There has been reasonable expenditure on sets for this sort of flick- but this is no Malcolm McDowell's Caligula. It is an historical and cinematic rag n' bone sale.

Frankly my dears I would give this a wide berth......