Paganini Horror

Do you want the bad news or good news? Bad news is there isn't much good news for this Italian horror flick. The good is some of the scenes and direction feel proper for a good giallo as well as the killings , soundtrack is decent, and you have Donald Pleasance giving a decent cameo with a twist, as well as Daria Nicolodi, and the girl at the beginning. The bad is the English dub makes the dialogue very bad in turn making it look like bad acting, too much unnecessary dialogue takes away from the atmosphere of the film. The producer is the most hated character was hoping for her to die first, but her death was pretty impressive. Not the worst film I've seen but wasn't as good as I was expecting as the plot sounded promising. 2/5.

I really enjoyed this trashy 80's Italian horror from director Luigi Cozzi, once on the DPP video nasty list for his film Contamination (1980). This film is more silly and nonsensical than nasty, in fact it's quite fun with some bad over the top acting, except for Donald Pleasance and Daria Nicolodi, with some nice bits of gore, colourful imagery and dodgy special effects.

A female rock band practice their music in an old mansion once owned by the famous classical Italian composer who supposedly sold his soul to the Devil 200 years ago. When they play an unpublished piece of his music they accidentally open up a portal to hell and reawaken the maestro.

Italian horror movies have a certain style and ambience to them, sometimes indulgent but usually entertaining enough with some interesting ideas and bravura set pieces to hold the attention and, of course, bad dubbing. They even saw fit to dub English actor Donald Pleasance who has an uncharacteristically deep voice here and makes a guest appearance rather than having a starring role. Nicolodi comes off best, a Dario Argento regular, who co-wrote the script with Cozzi.

Once Paganini is awakened he returns as a mad slasher complete with a knife wielding violin who sets out to kill everyone and drag them to hell. There are plenty of unintentional funny moments and a few intentional ones too, especially the last scene after Paganini gets exposed to sunlight.

Cozzi tries to create some atmosphere but the loud rock music gets in the way so it's not as scary as it could have been but the moments of colourful gore make up for it.

"Paganini Horror" isn't a masterpiece,but it is a solid horror flick that will keep almost all horror fans entertained.The acting,apart from Daria Nicolodi("Deep Red","Tenebre")and Donald Pleasance("Phenomena","Halloween"),is pretty bad and the rock music is extremely cheesy and annoying.Director Luigi Cozzi("Il Gatto Nero")desperately tries to create some spooky atmosphere and,in my opinion,he partially succeeds.The film is full of rich,glowing colors,and the gore effects are pretty well-done(for example nasty head explosion,violin stabbings etc).All in all I really enjoyed this one,so check it out for yourself.

It is pretty terrible and rather a shame. Paganini was born in 1782 and he became such a great player that he was known as 'The Devil's Violinist' which it seems it was believed to be a gift from the devil. It was a great idea that Luigi Cozzi supposedly discovers some lost music and turns it into an 80s girl band so they can have a hit song. They rather make a sad noise with big hair and then run around and screaming because one after the other is lost. And that is about it with some blood but not much and then some small scenes with Donald Pleasence and the splendid Daria Nicolodi is sadly rather running around with the others and holding hands, and screaming.

This movie is so bad.... The acting, the story, the dialogues, the special effects, the direction, the sound.... Everything in this movie is soooo bad that I LOVE it!! It's supposed to be a horror movie but it's the best and funniest comedy I ever seen!! I can't stop laughing every time I'm watching it and I'm so in love with it that I ended up buying the video! If you want to laugh for 80 minutes, watch it!! The best line?? "Spirito del Male.... TI DETESTO!" - Italian people will understand.