Murder Obsession

If I had a time machine, I would prefer going back to the early 80s, especially 1981 and '82, which were the heydays of Horror. The time was one of the most splendid phase of the slasher and zombie genres and we certainly have enough of those films to revel upon. As I look down to the slasher genre, I see there were many that came out victorious and instantly garnered a decent cult-following. Some others were not so effective then, but found audience in course of time and certain others are still waiting for the right audience to get famous. I think 'Fear' aka 'Murder Syndrome' falls in the 3rd of the aforementioned categories.

I got a copy of 'Murder Syndrome' under the name of 'Fear' in 1994. Being a devoted fan of slasher and giallo, I keep digging the heap of such films to discover something precious. I love slashers, but only when they're accompanied with a sound atmosphere. 'Fear' has everything for a slasher buff like me. It's a great giallo with a twist of supernatural, some edgy psychological dilemma, effective dark humor, gore, nudity and a gruesome atmosphere. So you can choose what you want. Wake up man, It's 1981....What did you expect? Budget wise, the movie has a low profile, but the presence of a big Victorial-era mansion, lush outdoor locations combined with some good acting make 'Murder Syndrome' nifty. Freda seems to have invested his mind heavily in the plot that unfolds very rudely. The ending is almost a surprise and will leave you in shock. I think this was an experiment of mingling two alternate endings and surprisingly, both of them are nicely written.

Michael (Stefano Patrizi) is a successful actor. He has everything to be proud of; name, fame, and a beautiful girlfriend Deborah (Silvia Dionisio). During the weekend break, Michael decides to pay a visit to his mother Glenda (Anita Strindberg ), who lives in a palatial house, somewhere far away from the urban locale. Michael takes Deborah along, as he wants to introduce her to his mother. On the way to his home, Michael gets distracted with some flashes of events from his dark and forgotten past. Finally they reach their destination and are greeted by Oliver (John Richardson), the house butler. Michael meets Glenda but it seems she is living a secluded and lonely life. Deborah feels Glenda is acting suspicious, but she doesn't have anything against her. In the meantime a filming crew with director Hans (Henri Garcin) and 2 actresses Shirley (Martine Brochard) and Beryl (Laura Gemser) arrive at the mansion for Michael's latest movie shoot. The guests are given a cold reception by Oliver, who seems to be very superstitious. Once they settle inside the spooky mansion, strange events begin to occur. Beryl faces a murder attempt, where a strange figure with black gloves tries to drown her in the bathtub. Michael's behavior with Deborah begins to change when Deborah tells him about her dream, where she witnessed a black mass and a strange over-sized spider trying to devour her. Deborah emphasizes that she had been a part of the mass, but she isn't able to recall the exact time of the event. Then Beryl is torn open with a hunting knife, right beside the river bank. Hans manages to capture some snaps of the killer, but before he is able to disclose the killer's identity, he is brutally hacked to death with an Axe. Deborah and the Shirley are looking for some clues, when they accidentally stumble upon Hans' camera and some of those nasty snaps. However, Shirley gets killed by a chainsaw as she is in the photo lab trying to develop the prints. Deborah is left with no other option but to run for her life. Deborah runs across the estate and into the woods only to be stopped by Oliver, who may have some hints about the strange events going on in the mansion.

'Fear' is a great film with some of the great moments that left a deep impression in my mind. I keep this very close to me because it acts as a great hallucinogen for me. When I call it a 'hallucinogen', I mean to say that it is able to push you into a dream world, where you won't be able to differentiate between the real and imaginary. The acting is cut above most of the slasher films that oozed during the 80s. This is a smart and intelligent film from Freda and should be watched for what it is!

My review was written in June 1986 after watching the movie on Wizard video cassette.

Riccardo Freda, doyen of Italian horror film directors, attempts to moderate his approach (with mixed results) in "Fear". Reviewed here for the record, feature was made in 1980 with various alternate titles including "Unconscious" and "Murder Syndrome"; it is now available domestically on video cassette.

Stefano Patrizi portrays a film actor who is haunted by nightmares and daydreams relating to having witnessed in childhood the murder of his dad. When he and a film crew visit his mother's home in the country as part of a location-hunting trip a series of grisly murders occurs.

Freda includes hints of various fantasy elements here, ranging from black magic to an invisible kirlian-effect killer, but essentially this is a gothic murder mystery dressed up with modern sex & violence. Key plot element emphasizes the too-close relationship of Patrizi and his mother, played by former sex symbol Anita Strindberg. More recent sex stars Laura Gemser and Silvia Dionisio are on hand in various stages of undress as Patrizi's leading lady and girlfriend, respectively.

Tech credits other than the subpar dubbing are fine and Franco Mannino provides a pleasant musical score emphasizing classical themes. Even for the horror genre, Freda's gloomy ending is a bit much.

I would take some of the other reviews about this film with a pinch of salt - it's not that amazing and it's not that gory, at least in the version I saw under the title "The Wailing". I also suspect a bit of cheating must have occurred to get it the 5.8 rating.

On to the film... It starts with some brilliant music, the sort you used to get in the early 80's horror films. This made me excited for what was to come, but sadly it seemed to go downhill from there. The problem with The Wailing is that it is confusing and the plot meanders too much. There's some dream sequences that go on for so long you forget they are actually dream sequences. Random scenes seem to be thrown together with no connection. There's also a serious lack of lighting, making it even harder to understand what is happening. It reminded me slightly of Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" because of the meandering plot.

It does have some good points though. As mentioned, the music is great and gives it a real horror 'feel'. However they used it too much; it almost plays through the entire film and gets tiresome after a while. The atmosphere is quite good, and had the plot been more coherent this could have been a really atmospheric horror flick.

This really isn't worth seeking out unless you're a fan of Italian horror, even then you can still do much better. The UK VHS cover is cool though - I'll give it that.

Michael, a successful actor with a secret in his past, returns to his family estate after a long absence.He arrives with his girlfriend in tow and he greeted by his mother who seems a bit too attentive to her son and distancing to the girlfriend. It isn't long before some more friends arrive for both business and pleasure. However ghosts of the past are reawakened and it isn't long before strange things begin happening and people begin dying.

This is Italian horror at its most silly. The film starts off interesting enough with Michael going home to a house full of eerie people and occurrences. There is a nice tension to the proceedings, however things begin to sputter a bit when the girlfriend has one of the funniest "scary" dreams ever put on film after 1965. It comes complete with fake spider web and rubber spider and is impossible to take seriously. From there things begin to move unevenly as bodies begin to pile up and the number of suspects begin to diminish. The film completely falls apart as it tries to explain and re-explain whats really going on and who these people are. Its a mess and I found myself giggling through the final 20 minutes or so.

I was disappointed. The early scenes created a nice tension that was lost when things started to become silly and illogical (I know one should not always look for reason and logic in Italian horror). It gets points for keeping me watching to the end, but that was because I kept hoping it would shift gears into reverse and go back to being the decent little thriller at the start.

4 out of 10. Disappointing thriller is probably worth watching if you stumble across it late at night and find there is nothing better on. Those who like Italian horror and giallo films can probably add a couple of points.

Riccardo Freda is considered one of the maestros of Italian horror based on the strength of three films in the late 50's and early 60's--"I, Vampiri" (which we now know was mostly directed by Mario Bava), "The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock", and the sequel to the latter, "The Ghost". Unfortunately, everything he did after that pretty much ranges from awful to disappointing. This one falls more into the latter category.

An actor nearly strangles his female co-star during the filming of the scene. Everyone seems strange unperturbed about this including the actress herself, who later has sex with him(of course, it helps that this character is played by Laura "Emanuelle" Gemser who pretty much has sex with everybody in her movies). They all repair to the troubled actor's eerie, decrepit estate complete with a creepy butler named Oliver and a mother who is "not well". Actually, she looks pretty good for someone who is supposedly the mother of a grown man and, not surprisingly, she has a close, Oedipal relationship with her son who looks EXACTLY like his musical conductor father, "the Maestro", who was mysteriously murdered years earlier (and you can pretty much bet it was by one of two people). The actor's girlfriend is also along for the ride and she suspects something is up between the two of them when the son introduces her to his a mother as his secretary and insists that they sleep in separate rooms. Meanwhile, someone is dispatching the various guests with the usual over-elaborate giallo methods--a bathtub drowning, a chainsaw, etc.

Freda brings an interesting Gothic sensibility to the giallo genre here, even though his main focus is obviously on the gory murders. At least he is somewhat in his element, unlike with the abysmal "Iguana with a Tongue of Fire" he did earlier. The acting is awful and the special effects during the murder scene are laughable, but fans of Freda and Laura Gemser could do a lot worse I guess.