I frati rossi

The packaging for the DVD of The Red Monks displays Lucio Fulci's name rather prominently, despite the fact that he only produced the film; it's a rather desperate attempt to fool fans of Euro horror into thinking that the film's director Gianni Martucci may have been influenced by the king of Italian gore and saw fit to throw in some cheap and cheerful splatter. The truth is, however, that The Red Monks is a fairly 'dry' film, with the only carnage being a couple of crap decapitated heads; to make matters worse, it's also extremely boring.

Martucci's dull as ditch-water screenplay sees wealthy bachelor Robert Garlini (Gerardo Amato) meeting a beautiful painter named Ramona Curtis (Lara Wendel). After a brief romance, the pair marry, and Ramona moves into the family home—a sprawling castle complete with dusty passageways and dingy cellars—much to the consternation of housekeeper Priscilla.

On their first night together, Robert is called away for several hours to deal with some urgent business, but on his return, rather than rush to his bride and indulge in unbridled passion, the crazy fool rejects his virginal wife's sexual advances. This strange behaviour continues for several days, and the relationship naturally turns sour. Robert has his reasons, though: firstly, he's been getting his oats from Priscilla, but more importantly, he is ensuring that his wife is pure when the time comes for him to hand her over to the Satanic sect of Templar knights that inhabit the castle cellar.

Despite a few fun elements, including quite a bit of nudity from gorgeous star Wendel, a silly skeleton with glowing eyes, a guest appearance by one of the pipe-cleaner spiders from Fulci's The Beyond, and a 'twist' ending, The Red Monks is a monotonous and stuffy effort that I believe even the most obsessive of Italian horror afficianados will find hard to endure.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

This late-era Italian horror film falls somewhere near the bottom of the pile when it comes to entertainment. Ghosthouse it ain't. This shares the same lower tier as Demons 3 The Ogre and Sweet House of Horrors. I really hope I've already reviewed Demons 3...not sure I could sit through that one again.

This one has Lara Wendel being stuck up a tree and then falling into the lap of guy who marries her in his big house that somehow has a bunch of monks living in the basement who demand the blood of a virgin, namely that of Lara Wendel. If you've sat through Ghosthouse, Tenebrae, and other Wendel films and wondered if you'd ever see her naked, then this is the film for you. Also, you're not missing much.

The problem with this film is down to pacing and lack of convincing fake severed heads. Pacing seems to fluctuate from kind of creepy when peeps are trying to figure out what's going on in that house and people having domestic arguments. Fake severed heads are also a problem here as the heads involved are worse than what your six year old kid can come up with using some play-dough.

This isn't the worst 'end of era' Italian horror film (and it's nowhere near the best - check out Maya and the Spider Labyrinth) but it's one you may encounter often. If you have OCD, just get it, put it on, and let you mind drift. It's that kind of film.

The Red Monks (1988)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Robert (Gerardo Amato) marries Ramona (Lara Wendel) after a quick romance and soon they move to his castle out in the middle of nowhere. On their wedding night they're unable to do the special deed because Robert is called away where a group of monks demand that his wife's virgin blood be given to them in four days.

THE RED MONKS was one of the handful of movies that were released in Italy towards the end of their glory days of horror films. These films were released with Lucio Fulci's name attached to them but he served just as a producer. With that said, none of them are all that entertaining and the same is true with THE RED MONKS, which suffers the same low-budget that the other films did.

The low-budget means that there really aren't any of the gory special effects that one would come to expect. A lot of the death scenes here take place off screen, although there is one decent decapitation. The film does serve up a fair amount of nudity but this here just isn't enough to keep the film entertaining. The biggest problem is that there's just way too much boring dialogue that really doesn't go anywhere. The entire time I kept wondering why the husband just didn't take the wife's virginity, which would have solved the problem but oh well.

THE RED MONKS isn't overly awful but there's just no atmosphere to be found. The film for the most part has a very slow pace and in the end there's just not enough entertainment value to be had.

This movie is kind of a throw-back to the Italian Gothic horror films of the 1960's. A man inherits a family castle. He has a dubbed Italian version of a "meet cute" with a female painter (Lara Wendel), after his dog trees her, and he marries her after a whirlwind romance. However, he has something going on in his cellar with a strange order of monks dressed in red (thus, the title), who warn him that his new bride must remain a virgin, so after their wedding night is reduced to some gratuitous breast-suckling, the husband instead takes up with his severe, but sexy housekeeper. The wife meanwhile discovers that her new husband is up to something in the cellar and discovers a family curse involving an ancestor who killed the head of the order of monks after he was "seduced" by a Gypsy girl (actually it looks more like he just rapes her). The ending will surprise or confuse you--maybe both.

This movie has SOME of the gratuitous material you would expect from an Italian film of this era, mostly the scene where the monk chases and has his way (for several minutes) with a skinny-dipping Gypsy girl, and another memorable scene where a minor character's head ends up in a picnic basket (perhaps she was attacked by Yogi and Boo Boo?). But actually at times this movie is more atmospheric, more like a 60's Italian horror film, even if the plot doesn't really make a lick of sense (actually, not unlike a 60's Italian horror film). The goofy English dubbing doesn't help though, and is pretty suspect at times like when characters talk about a ritual that will occur at the "next opening of Uranus" (They may not have been taking their jobs entirely seriously).

Lara Wendel is a pretty interesting actress. She is known mostly for a small role in Dario Argento's "Tenebrae" and for appearances in more low-rent 80's Italian horror flicks like "Midnight Killer", "Ghost House" and Killer Birds". She also was a pretty decent actress though who had a more high-brow career with a major role as male and female twins in Salvatore Samperi's "Ernesto" and with small roles in "Identification of a Woman" and even an obscure Fellini movie. But ALL of these came out of her questionable early career as a kind of "Euro-Lolita" (along with actresses like Eve Ionesco, Katja Beirnert, Katya Berger, Susan Hemingway, and a young Nastassia Kinski). Suffice it to say, that while this isn't an especially sexy role, it's ironically the only sexy role she did AFTER she turned 18.

This movie is at times confusing and general pretty dumb, but it does have a few things going for it.

I was a little disappointed after watching this film the first time, it was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be, oh well. The film is rather flat as far as the plot goes and the acting is a little wooden, though the English dubbing is not too badly done. Some of the special effects are cheap and amateurish and the ending was a little confusing(or was it just to me) and there was a little nudity thrown in for good measure. Despite its flaws though it has grown on me and I quite enjoy this film now, I really want one of those red robes! I would suggest to anyone thinking of watching this movie that you rent it rather than buy it until you have made your own mind.