Arabella: Black Angel

THe trouble about this film is to get a good quality uncut copy.When you do you will see one of the great[not the greatest]over the top italian sleaze thriller films.Hollywood[here i bless myself] would never make anything like this.See it and enjoy but dont tell your maiden auntie.

Trying to revive a life that has ended, eroticism viewed more like a virtue, but burdened and victimized by the christian, puritan values that come from outside forces. Hard to judge performances in an italian movie from this era, the dubbing doesn't help, but everyone feels genuine in this, tinì cassino as the titular black angel is fantastic, a completely thankless role that is entirely focused on eroticism, sensuality, a genuine sex drive that falls under every scene. Stelvio massi's direction is fantastic, the 4:3 frame just acts as a great wavelength to where incredible blocking and camera movements are seemingly easy (which they aren't), the constant zooms, the glorious sense of atmosphere, this is a director's movie and the way he shoots bodies, the fog, the nighttime, and the outward virtues is glorious. R. filipucci's screenplay, because it is italian, is nonsense in many ways, but the structure allows this to form into something genuinely mysterious, i can easily say i didn't know what was going to happen, so kudos to that, the screenplay forms pretty perfectly where it allows a sense mystery and character to actually be built. A fantastically mesmerizing, erotic, tantalizing, unnerving, and genuinely disturbing movie that could only come from weird italians.

I was able to put in my collection the full uncut version, that means English spoken with Japanese subtitles. Japanese means that private parts are forbidden, so the erotic parts of the movie are blurred. And there are a lot of them in the movie. For me it's a typical giallo with changing plots. The gore is surprisingly low for a giallo. i think that's one of the reasons that it never had a major label to promote it. if you're in giallo's be sure to collect this OOP and hard to get full uncut version. as many giallo's don't be annoyed about the music and bad acting. Collect your peanuts and a beer, sit down and watch a underrated giallo.

They often say the greatest Gialli (excessively violent Italian murder mysteries) were only produced during the early 70s. Well, they are probably right. You can hardly refer to the late-80s "Arabella the Black Angel" as a good giallo, but boy is it ever entertaining!!! In fact, the whole giallo sub-plot is nothing but a mere footnote, since the film is primarily a semi-pornographic thriller full of demented characters with perverted fetishes and kinky after-dark habits.

Beautiful and voluptuous nymph Arabella, or Deborah, roams the streets at night and visits secluded bondage/orgy clubs because her beloved husband Francesco is paralyzed and can't physically please her. The reason why he's in a wheelchair is actually quite hilarious and, moreover, Arabella's own stupid fault! During a raid at the orgy club, she's raped by a filthy copper who subsequently lets her go, but only to show up at her front gate the next day for a second portion of joyful sex! Arabella knocks him dead with a hammer, because she knows Francesco is watching, and apparently this vile act sparks up their sex life again! Francesco encourages his wife to pick up random strangers for sex, while he writes her adventures down in a new erotic novel, but meanwhile there's also an unseen killer with shiny black gloves butchering Arabella's bed partners with a pair of scissors.

The plot continues to make utterly bonkers twists and turns, since the traumatized police inspector Gina (with massively oversized glasses to illustrate just how feminist she is) gets put on the scissor-murders case and her lesbian lover promptly backstabs her, but it's all too to insane and useless to write down. The only thing you need to know is that "Arabella the Black Angel" is purely unhinged Italian exploitation trash! The obvious giallo trademarks (black gloves, ominous music, vicious gore, etc) are definitely there, but quintessential things like suspense and surprise denouements are sorely missing. The identity of the scissor-killer is easy to guess, but it doesn't matter all that much, because the beauty of Tiní Cansino's continuous nakedness compensates for all the shortcomings. Director Stelvio Massi was a prolific Poliziotesschi director during the seventies, but during the 80s he had to revert to making sleazy flicks like this one.

Arabella is a beautiful and sexy housewife with a clear goal: to fulfill all her darkest sexual urges. Her husband, a writer who sits in a wheelchair after a car accident, takes inspiration in Arabella to give life to his new book charachter called Black Angel.

But Arabella, on her quest for pleasure, will soon find herself in a cruel, dangerous world, where the innocence of lust cannot fight envy, corruption, nor a serial killer with a pair of sharp scissors following her high-heel steps through the night.

Promising aesthethics in a giallo influenced erotic thriller.