Nero veneziano

My third Ugo Liberamore film and it seems unlikely I'll get the chance to see any more. These three, The Sex Of Angels, May Morning and this were hard enough to get hold of but all very much worth a search. If this Venice set horror is not quite up to the other two, it isn't far off and I enjoyed it. My print was pretty degraded and the film shot in Venice in the winter but I still reckon this could be the best looking Venice on film. Creepy and unsettling with moments of true horror, this intrigues from the very start with the blind boy being led down the narrow alleyways and across the tiny bridges. The music helps keep things from becoming too ordinary and Playboy 'playmate', Rena Niehaus a welcome distraction from some of the more grisly terrors. I've seen this described as a giallo, which it is not and moreover, I have to say, it doesn't crack along like some wild thriller but with Rosemary's Baby and Don't Look Now merely as undertones this is a very different vision of satanism.

Mark is a blind boy living with his sister Christine in Venice.During a funeral Mark has another in a series of recent visions of a man with a cane,only this time the man is with a woman and a dog that is eating a decayed arm.Christine is openly unsympathetic to these visions and resents having to look after her brother.Mark and Christine are orphans and are staying with their grandmother,but when grandmother is killed in a bizarre fire accident their mother's family,the mysterious Winters become their guardians and Mark and Christine go to stay at their house."Damned in Venice" is a neglected gem.It offers some genuine shocks and a nice amount of female nudity.The Venetian location sets are gloomy,decayed and oppressive and there is a bit of gore including pretty nasty scene of child murder.It's great to see Lorraine DeSelle and Olga Karlatos of "Zombi 2" fame in the small roles.8 out of 10.

Other than for the Venice scenarios, this late Rosemary's baby clone is almost dismissable without any comment, with its story of a blind young man trying to battle against the evil spawn of his sister short relation (in fact, she was virgin, as Satan want to mock Jesus life and death for his son)with a dark stranger, probably Satan himself. Bad acting, bad story, bad special effects, gratuitous nudity. A real B-movie, but not as good as it should be

Directed by Ugo Liberatore (who co-scripted Giorgio Ferroni's fantastic 1960 Gothic Horror film "Il Mulino Delle Donne Di Pietro" aka "The Mill of the Stone Women"), "Nero Veneziano" of 1978 is an elegant, creepy and bizarre occult flick which is sometimes unfairly called a 'rip off' of American films like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen". This only makes sense if any film that has to do with the Antichrist released after the aforementioned films is automatically a rip-off (in which case one would also have to argue that all American Slashers are rip-offs of Italian Gialli like Bava's "Bay of Blood"). "Nero Veneziano", in my opinion, is not a rip-off. Also, some people seem to regard this film as a Giallo, which astonishes me since it simply isn't at all: There is no murder series or murder mystery here, but occult and supernatural Horror - Which makes it anything but a Giallo. While it is a worthwhile and elegant film it isn't a masterpiece either, as whereas the visual style is wonderful and the film's bizarre nature is fascinating, the flick also isn't too coherent, and it occasionally becomes a little lengthy in-between. Still, it is a compelling experience which my fellow fans of Italian Horror should not miss.

"Nero Veneziano" is terrifically set in Venice, which contributes a lot to the film's visual beauty. Mark (Renato Cestiè), a boy who has been blind for the last three years, is tormented by occasional gruesome and infernal visions. When the orphaned boy and his older sister Christine (Rena Niehaus) also loose their grandmother in a tragic event, Mark's disturbing visions turn out to be more than bizarre nightmares...

The film is visually beautiful and impressive, though the whole thing is bleak and the colors are kept very cold. Actually, the visual style somewhat reminded me of Pupi Avati's brilliant "La Casa Delle Finesetre Che Ridono" ("The House with the Laughing Windows"), though Avati's film is set in the countryside, and furthermore a masterpiece, which this film isn't in my opinion. Still the story is fascinating, though it has its holes. The film is rather slow-going, but includes a bunch of truly disturbing outbursts, such as Mark's violent visions. Leading actor Renato Cestiè, who was 15 when this film was made, is best known for playing child roles in older genre gems, such as Mario Bava's "Reazione a Catena" ("A Bay of Blood", 1971) and Sergio Martino's "I Corpi Presentano Tracce Di Violenzia Carnale" ("Torso", 1973). Rena Niehaus, who plays the female lead, might also be known to fans of Italian Exploitation/Cult cinema for starring in Epinardo Visconti's "La Orca" (1976) and the sequel "Oedipus Orca" (1977). Overall, this is a creepy and atmospheric occult horror film that is especially recommendable due to its elegant visual style and bizarre mood. Recommended.

I have to admit, I LOVE these Italian "rip-offs" of "The Exorcist"/"The Omen"/"Rosemary's Baby" that were big in the 1970's, even the bad ones. But this one is actually pretty good. I'd rank it ahead of Ovidio Assontis' "Beyond the Door", Alberto DeMartino's "The Antichrist" and Pier Carpi's "Ring of Darkness". It's difficult to compare it to "The Eerie Midnight Horror Show" or "Malabimba" because those were more straight-out sex romps. It's about on par with DeMartino's second attempt "Holocaust 2000", but it is more scary and less over-the-top silly. It was probably influenced to some extent by Nicholas Roeg's "Don't Look Now", what with its Venice setting and its young blind protagonist who keeps having apocalyptic visions. The protagonist is pooh-poohed by his sighted older sister (Rena Niehais), but she doesn't seem to find it strange when everyone around them starts dying--first their guardian, then the couple who own the pension they come to stay at (which somehow results in them inheriting the place). Then a sinister man from the boy's visions shows up at the pension and seduces the sister, impregnating her by a not-so-immaculate conception (she only gives him oral sex!). After the baby is born, the blind brother makes several attempts to kill it (the most memorable scenes in the movie), but he may be playing right into Satan's hands. . .

These Italian "rip-offs" are almost all a lot more original than they're given credit for. The low-budget Italian industry simply lacked the money to imitate big-budget Hollywood spectacles like "The Exorcist" or "The Omen" too much(and they lacked the sensibilities to imitate the subtle paranoia of a film like "Rosemary's Baby"), so they were forced to be inventive. This one has some especially effective scenes such as when the boy goes to drink out of a holy well in an effort to cure his blindness only unbeknownst to him, it is apparently full of rats and slimy black snakes!

The cast is also impressive, especially the female cast. German Playboy Playmate Neihaus turns in a surprisingly good performance (and not-so-surprisingly gets naked several times). And speaking of getting naked, the perpetually unclothed Ely Galeani and Angela Covello also show up as part of the sister's strange but very sexy babysitting coven. And Greek actress Olga Karlatos, who would later appear in several Lucio Fulci movies and as Prince's mom (!) in "Purple Rain" also appears as an especially ambiguous and mysterious character. Of course, it greatly helps everyone's performance that the English dubbing is pretty competent for a change . Good movie. Check it out