Pathos - Segreta inquietudine

One of the two-hundred-and-forty-six cinema related hobbies I have includes tracking down as many Gialli as humanly possible! The true Italian Giallo flourished from the mid-sixties until the early seventies, and uniquely combined extreme violence with gratuitous sleaze and flamboyant whodunit-plots. Throughout the late eighties, there were a couple of noteworthy attempts to revive the genre, but not too many titles from this era are worth seeking out. "Midnight Ripper", "Spider Labyrinth", "Formula for a Murder", and "Nothing Underneath" are fine 80s Gialli; "Obsession: A Taste for Fear" is not.

"Obsession: A Taste for Fear" is a very curious hybrid of a Giallo and a few other genres, and although the set-up is definitely original, it doesn't work at all. For starters, it's a Sci-Fi story for no apparent reason and without any added value. The lead heroine drives in a silly electric vehicle and chooses her outfit and make-up via a digital application, but furthermore the script doesn't do anything with the Sci-Fi elements. The story revolves around a headstrong and confident feminist photographer whose models (and lesbian lovers) are getting killed. She then also starts a passionate relationship with the investigating homicide detective. Sure, this may sound like an intriguing plot, but the film is painfully boring and unnecessarily complex.

It takes an incredibly long time before the first murder occurs, and the onscreen violence/bloodshed is disappointingly tame. Most of the running time exists of endless photo shoots full of nudity (not the exciting kind, though) and boring monologues of lead actress Virginia Hey. If I browse around the user-comments, "Obsession: A Taste of Fear" clearly has several devoted fans, but I - for one - can't find a lot to recommend.

OK, I admit it: I rented this movie only because it has Eva Grimaldi in it; well, Eva has only a minor, virtually non-speaking part, and the film is far from the conventional erotic thriller you might expect based on the video box promotion. It's really not a very good movie, but it's unlike anything you've ever seen before. Part kinky soft-core sex film, part murder mystery, set in a vaguely futuristic world, it is a very strange, very arty film, with some bizarre music ("The Man I Love"!) and casting (female bodybuilder Teagan as...herself) choices. It's obvious that one of the goals of this movie was to create (with limited means) its own world; it succeeded admirably. By the way, did the person who said that "it wants to be like "Basic Instinct"" bother to check out its production date? (**)

This film is packaged as a run of-the-mill sex thriller, however theres a lot more to it than meets the eye. The video box neglects to mention that this is a sci-fi adventure. The photography is absolutely magnificent, gorgeous, and well thought out. Sureal and surprising. It's everybit a 'Barberella' for the eighties

I have this movie in my collection and I pull it out to watch it about once or twice a year. It is a very strange movie and that keeps me coming back to examine it over and over. I would have gave it a 10, but it's attempt to look space-age kind of fizzled. However, the acting is good and the characters/actors are good-looking and interesting. The suspense and the music soundtrack make it all the more fascinating. I guess it makes me nostalgic for the 1980s when a slew of B-movies on VHS regularly flooded the small mom and pop video stores. This is one of the movies from that time period that stands out as unusual and entertaining. I recommend watching this creepy and mostly well-made, hard-to-find movie.

Yes, it takes place in the future, but I think that's just because the producers had access to a futuristic car and wanted to work it into the plot. In reality, it is a conventional erotic thriller, but it's a fairly worthy one. Alone worth the price of admission is an absolutely stunning brunette in one of the supporting roles. She and Virginia Hey get into a little romantic tryst that absolutely revolutionized my adolescent fantasy life when I saw this picture back in the 80's.