I frati rossi

A much overlooked horror that contains some stylish blood-letting and a high level of erotica. Exactly the kind of film that received virtually no exposure at the time of its release here in the UK (thanks to our overprotective censors) but directors such as Lucio Fulci (the producer of this one), delivered 100's of these to a wanting euro audience, who simply lapped them up! Strange to think but this oddball was almost populist cinema for the italians, back in the 1980's.

I didn't expect much going into this film, and it's a really good job that I didn't because Red Monks really doesn't deliver! The film offers little that you can't get from several better devils/exploitation flicks. The film has Lucio Fulci's name attached to it since the great director has a producers credit; but I don't know why that attracted me since even the films that Fulci did direct around the late eighties were mostly not up to much. This one is directed by Gianni Martucci, and while the director has something of an eye for aesthetics, he's not great at creating tension and it results in a very boring film. The story revolves around some ancient ritual involving a bunch of people dressed in red monk robes. The wealthy owner of a castle where this takes place meets a pretty young woman and marries her. She goes to live in the castle and soon becomes frustrated by her husband's secretive night time behaviour. People start dying and her husband's secret becomes in danger of being revealed; but maybe his secret is not the most surprising. The film drones on for about eighty minutes and there's very little that's memorable about it. In fact, the only sequence I can remember well is a scene with the most ridiculously fake spider I've ever seen, and considering I only saw it last night - it has to be said that this film is not overly memorable. It all boils down to a supposedly surprising twist that I guessed before the film even started. Overall, it has to be said that Red Monks is a big waste of time and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone!

At first, I thought this was a TV effort, given the dull, flat, boring look of it all. Everything is off on it. Given that it was probably shot on video, everything is far too bright to bring out any kind of atmosphere. Plot-wise, it's ridiculous. The basis for the marriage between two vacant people hinges on her falling out of a tree because...of a tarantula...that we only see one more time. Honestly - she falls out of the tree and they cut right to the wedding. The movie plods along with cliché after cliché that they can't even be bothered to do properly. Sporadic use of hand held cameras and fish- eye lenses only confuse the issue more. To keep the budget low there are no extras. Period. This could be used to good effect with some back story but back story isn't what this is about. That is, except for a 10-15min sequence towards the end where all the "secrets" are spilled. As noted, the budgeted no money for special effects meaning no flying heads, no wounds, no gore of any kind unless you count the $1.50 they spent of fake blood in one scene. Sub par acting. Some nudity. No suspense.

I'm happy I didn't pay to see this.

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 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.