Il bosco 1

Having seen this film as the director intended by way of a fully restored and remastered Blu-Ray from Oblivion Home Movies, I was thoroughly impressed with the movie.

Low budget aside, Evil Clutch (IL Bosco 1, in Italy) mostly accomplished what it set out to achieve. Abstract, disturbing and violent at times, this knockoff of Raimi's The Evil Dead is probably the best of its kind. And there are quite a few clones of this well known franchise one may seek out. Few others manage to reach this undeniable level of creativity and charm.

Many of the older reviews are low because finding a great print of this movie was next to impossible or because the critic simply didn't give it a real chance at all.

Go in with the right headspace and fans of obscure horror should find much here to celebrate.

First of all I was surprised to see that this film is not one of those typical TROMA-releases. It's an italian production and (sad but true) not one of those splatter-comedies like "Class of Nuk'em High", "The Toxic Avenger" or all the other funny flicks that made TROMA so popular. While watching this film, you won't even have a single chance for a smile. It's completely different from the flicks mentioned above. The story is one of the worst ever and the acting is nothing but amateurish. The only thing this film can offer is gore!!! So, if you're a fan of Ittenbach's "Premutos" or Schnaas' "Violent S***"-Trilogy this one's the right one for you! Decapitation, chainsaws, Zombies...- all that stuff a real gore-fan could expect. If you're not related to this kind of film, you better don't buy or even rent this splatter-flick.

A vacationing couple (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni and Diego Ribon) head up into the Alps and end up running into a lady who begs them for help from some attacker. They drive her to a small village, she runs away, they meet a local crazy with a voicebox who warns of witches, they go camping, run into the woman again and get attacked by her. Oh, and this femme fatale has a large claw that extends from her groin and tries to kill people. This Italian film is heavily influenced by THE EVIL DEAD, but you can see director Andreas Marfori just doesn't have the talent to pull it off. It is like he watched Raimi's film with no translation. It is a shame as the film has many things going for it (nice camera work, great locations, tons of gore), but Marfori just can't get it to gel thanks to his incredibly wonky staging. He also overdoses on the use of the steadicam. The final scene with Coralina walking away from the carnage while followed by the steadicam goes on so long that it becomes a joke. Just when you get tired of it, the director then cuts to her continuing to walk with the camera in front of her for another minute or so. Jeez, such a shame.

An American woman played by Italian actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni of "Opera" fame is vacationing in Venice and decides to go with her local boyfriend on trip to the Alps.They run into a witch who says she was attacked and they give her a ride into town.There they meet a crazy guy on a motorcycle who speaks using a electrolarynx.They hike into the mountains and run into both of these people again up there.They also meet a zombie,who is chasing 'em without reason and promptly uses a fishing pole to catch a girl.The funniest thing is titular 'evil clutch'-a giant bloodthirsty claw protruding from witch's vagina.Hell yeah!This cheap and silly Italian "The Evil Dead" clone offers few amusing moments and plenty of grue.Lovers of bad cinema will be pleased with such oddity.

I like analyzing films like this because they're simple in style, but challenging to separate the faults and things the filmmakers did right from one another. The good things first: "Evil Clutch" tries to take itself seriously and does okay at it MOST of the time, has some good gore, gets pretty weird and imaginative at times (even if it is in that school of "Evil Dead" rip-offs, that being a film that ripped off the 1971 "Equinox" itself), and has almost non-stop scenes that are fun to watch when you're in a very anti-yuppie mood (which I always am). Leave it up to yuppies to not listen to the only likeable character when he warns them about the demonic happenings abounding in the woods, including one of the greatest lines of dialogue: "Do you really think that you're so far from horror?" Now for the not-so-good things: What would have been a good, dark splatter film is spoiled by some very laughable creature effects that are on par with Ed Wood's octopus from "Bride of the Monster", the stupid idea that we're supposed to believe that the wussed-out yuppie heroine can make a bunch of torches before a zombie walking toward her can come about seven inches closer to her, and a slow pace that would have been more interesting if the viewer were only given some people to root for other than the sadly under-used weird guy who warned those yuppie jerks not to go out into the woods in the first place. A fair movie, not terrible, but not even close to great by any means. Out of curiosity, I would like to check out the uncut version, but I've got to wonder if a bloodier version would elevate the quality of the film in any way other than a higher gore quotient.