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Ornella Muti’s legacy is getting even more iconic thanks to Oscar-winning auteur Sean Baker. The “Anora” director, who recently won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Picture, is ushering in the summer of Muti with the release of four newly-restored films. Titled the “Ornella Muti 1970s Collection,” the Blu-ray and DVD set will feature extensive new bonus features and new artwork by Gilles Vranckx for the North American market, as well as Baker interviewing Muti onscreen. The special featurette with Baker has him interviewing Muti on her career, 1970s cinema, and the collection itself.

“I’m beyond thrilled to sit down with the legendary Ornella Muti — an icon whose work has inspired me for years,” Baker told IndieWire. “Her presence on screen is electric, and I can’t wait to explore the stories behind her incredible career.”

The Blu-ray set was first announced by Muti’s daughter Naike Rivelli in...

After a month of Australian true crime titles, Jenn and I are spending April exploring supernatural true crime with a variety of Amityville texts. See also: The Amityville IP

We kicked things off last week with the original 1979 film, The Amityville Horror (listen). Now we’re turning our attention to the more DeFeo-centric text, Amityville II: The Possession (1982). Directed by Damiano Damiani from a script by Tommy Lee Wallace, the sequel acts as a prequel that purports to tell the original murders that were briefly explored in the first film.

While the real life case of Ronald DeFeo Jr is much less supernatural, it does involve a family annihilation. On the morning of Nov 13, 1974, the 23 year old stunned residents of Amityville, NY with the revelation that six of his family members had been shot to death in their beds.

The Possession explores the events leading up to the murders, but...

The first installment in a loose trilogy that includes 1967’s Entranced Earth and 1969’s Antonio das Mortes, Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil nonetheless stands alone as a benchmark for the difference between polemic and propaganda. If Rocha’s Italian contemporaries Sergio Corbucci and Damiano Damiani devised the Zapata western to turn the traditional western inside out—critiquing rather than valorizing imperialism—then Black God, White Devil might be called a Lampião western, after the folk hero of Brazilian social banditry who casts a long shadow over the film. More than allegorizing third-world revolutionary and decolonial struggles, Rocha stages a mythmaking intervention into Brazilian history.

As its English title suggests, Black God, White Devil is a film of two halves, each of which slots into a separate western subgenre, and could probably satisfy as a film in its own right. Taken as a whole, though, the film incites a...

Creating a horror prequel is trickier business than a sequel. The rules are far less rigid in sequels, with expanded body count and lore most often being the primary goals. But a horror movie prequel has the tougher needle to thread in ensuring all of its pieces nestle neatly within the previously established framework without contradicting any details.

This week brings the arrival of The Omen prequel, The First Omen, charting the events leading up to Antichrist Damien Thorn’s adoption. It makes for the perfect excuse to revisit horror prequels that successfully earned their spot in their franchises through unique shifts in setting, tone, and style without veering too far off the beaten path.

This week’s streaming picks highlight horror movie prequels that get weird or dial up the horror in intense ways while further fleshing out familiar characters and storylines.

Here’s where you can stream them this week.

The first installment in a loose trilogy that includes 1967’s Entranced Earth and 1969’s Antonio das Mortes, Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil nonetheless stands alone as a benchmark for the difference between polemic and propaganda. If Rocha’s Italian contemporaries Sergio Corbucci and Damiano Damiani devised the Zapata western to turn the traditional western inside out—critiquing rather than valorizing imperialism—then Black God, White Devil might be called a Lampião western, after the folk hero of Brazilian social banditry who casts a long shadow over the film. More than allegorizing third-world revolutionary and decolonial struggles, Rocha stages a mythmaking intervention into Brazilian history.

As its English title suggests, Black God, White Devil is a film of two halves, each of which slots into a separate western subgenre, and could probably satisfy as a film in its own right. Taken as a whole, though, the film incites a...

There are many diverse movie genres that uniquely resonate with audiences, but cinema's spaghetti Western subgenre has remained a niche fascination to mainstream crowds. Spaghetti Westerns first found popularity during the '60s as a colloquial term for the growing number of Westerns that were being made by Italian filmmakers.

The spaghetti Western has become an increasingly broad brand over time. Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the culmination to his gripping “The Man With No Name” Trilogy, is frequently viewed as peak spaghetti western content. However, there are many more worthwhile westerns that curious audiences need to check out.

A Bullet For The General Release Date: December 2, 1966

10 Excruciatingly Violent Westerns

Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General is one of the better examples of how a spaghetti Western can deliver a powerful political story rather than just bloody tales of revolution. Damiani's western...

Few horror sub-genres are as divisive as exorcism movies. For some, they are silly to the point of high camp, outrageous stories about invisible creatures that can take control of normal people and make them do outrageous things. For others, exorcism movies reveal a hidden realm of evil that has a very real impact on our world.

That tension allows a wide variety of approaches within the sub-genre, despite the dominance of one monumental film from the 70s. Exorcism movies can be ridiculous crowd-pleasers, stately dramas, or lowbrow comedies. Whether it’s because of the power of Christ or a really good script, you should feel compelled to watch these great exorcism movies.

The Exorcist (1973)

Of course, it starts with The Exorcist, directed by the late, great William Friedkin. Friedkin wasn’t writer William Peter Blatty’s first choice to direct the movie, which first went to Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich.

If American filmgoers are at all aware of the work of filmmaker Damiano Damiani, it’s likely because of his deranged “Zapata western” A Bullet for the General, or else his bonkers horror sequel Amityville II: The Possession, which easily surpasses its more famous predecessor in sheer Wtf factor. Neither of those films are necessarily indicative of Damiani’s serious-minded approach to the titles included in Radiance Films’s Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in Three Mafia Tales by Damiano Damiani, but they do illustrate Damiani’s determination to pepper his works with pungent social commentary. The three films in this new box set may illuminate very different aspects of the mafia’s tentacular grip on Sicilian society, but they’re united in their bleak, often hopeless diagnoses of these social ills.

The Day of the Owl, from 1968, pits carabiniere Captain Bellodi (Nero) against mafia boss Don Mariano Arena (Lee J. Cobb...

To mark the release of Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in Three Mafia Tales By

Damiano Damiani on 3rd July 2023, we have 1 limited edition Box Set to give away!

Radiance Films continues its impressive run of must-have Limited Editions with Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in Three Mafia Tales By Damiano Damiani – a stunning new collection featuring three outstanding films in the ultimate collaboration between two Italian greats – lauded Italian actor Franco Nero and respected director Damiano Damiani.

This stunning Blu-ray Box set features three 1970s classics in 2K restored editions: The Day of the Owl, The Case is Closed: Forget It and How to Kill a Judge. Presented in a rigid box with a removable Obi strip it comes complete with a 120-page book, featuring new and archival writing on the films by experts on the genre. The set contains a slew of outstanding special featuresthat see new interviews with Franco Nero,...

Beyond the Fulcis, Bavas and Argentos of the world, I have to confess that my experience of Italian cinema is very limited, so I’m coming to this boxset of Damiano Damiani and Franco Nero’s collaborations with not just fresh eyes, but little context for what to expect beyond the basics laid out by the description ‘three mafia tales’. You’ll have to pardon me if I miss some context to these films that having seen more, or knowing more about this late ’60s and early ’70s in Italian film, would allow.

The Films

The Day of the Owl begins with one of the film’s best sequences. As the credits come up, we see what we assume is a hunter, hiding on the side of a road on a hill. We never see his face, and when a truck carrying a load of cement rounds the hill, he fires,...

Lots of goodies - as is to be expected - from our friends at Arrow Video this coming June. Higlights include Sammo Hung's Warriors Two, Toru Murakawa's Game Trilogy and Damiano Damiani's mafia films in the Costra Nostra Collection.    Arrow Offers Classic and Cutting Edge Cult Cinema June 2023 Lineup Includes Martial Arts, Blood Money, John Cassavetes, Monte Hellman and Sci-Fi Stunners   June 2023 Seasons: Ero Guro, Martial Arts Mayhem, Eli Roth Selects, The Game Trilogy, Sci-Fi Stunners, Blood Money Collection, Cosa Nostra Collection   London, UK - Arrow Video is excited to announce the June 2023 lineup of their subscription-based Arrow platform, available to subscribers in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland.   June 2nd kicks off the month with Arrow's latest...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions.

After the highs of Amityville 2: The Possession, it’s hard not to see Amityville 3-D as something of a letdown. The Richard Fleischer-directed film lacks the visual flare that Damiano Damiani brought and the result is a film that is lacking all of the energy and verve of the first sequel. The new film feels more leaden and by the numbers, even as the film works overtime to justify its 3-D gimmick, which was all the rage in early 80s horror.

One stand-out aspect of the third Amityville is that it’s unafraid of being mean. The women, in particular, are treated horribly; the film’s two cruelest – and most memorable – deaths are reserved for supporting cast members Candy Clark (!) and Lori Loughlin (!!).

Unfortunately, the...

Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions.

While it’s easy to appreciate the grounded, almost stoic nature of the original, it’s hard not to enjoy the outright campiness of Amityville 2: The Possession. The sequel, which never explicitly mentions the Lutzs due to real life legal issues, is an absolutely wild ride.

Written by Fright Night Part 2 and Halloween 3: Season of the Witch’s Tommy Lee Wallace, the second film in the Amityville franchise crams in over the top performances, incest and more than a few nods to horror trends, including both the infamous Pov shots from slasher films like Halloween and Black Christmas, and a narrative riff on The Exorcist.

The film tells the story of the Montelli family, an Italian American family that moves into the now iconic house.

Gothic Fantastico-Four Italian Tales of Terror

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

Starring Barbara Nelli, Helga Liné, Franco Nero, Erica Blanc

Written by Giovanni Grimaldi, Bruno Corbucci

Directed by Massimo Pupillo, Alberto De Martino, Mino Guerrini, Damiano Damiani

The success of 1957’s I Vampiri, a grimly beautiful fantasy directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava, provoked an unexpected trend in the country known for neo-realism; Italian horror films began to embrace the classical romanticism of Rebecca over the modernistic shocks of Psycho. Elegant nightmares like Bava’s Black Sunday cast their spell and soon this new breed of gothics—united by sumptuous black and white photography—dominated movie theaters with tbeir come-hither promise of seductive spirits and strategically lit negligees.

A few of these thrillers were more brazen in their approach—flaunting their teasing nudity and blood-soaked denouements, exploitation fare like Atom Age Vampire and The Playgirls and the Vampire took aim at...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton is back with an in-depth look at Sergio Corbucci’s grand ‘Zapata’ Spaghetti Western. Set in post-1900 Mexico, Tony Musante’s rebellious peon wants to be a hero of the revolution but he primarily robs the rich in order to pay the extortionate wages that are demanded by Franco Nero’s interloping Polish mercenary-cum-military advisor. The resultant political allegory is played out on an almost epic scale and is suitably enlivened by the presence of a villainous Jack Palance, a plethora of large scale action scenes, an imaginatively used period car and biplane and a rousing soundtrack score by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai.

The Mercenary (Il mercenario)

Region B Blu-ray

88 Films The Italian Collection

1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / A Professional Gun, Il mercenario / Street Date, 8 Jan 2018 / £15.99

Starring: Franco Nero, Tony Musante, Jack Palance, Giovanna Ralli, Franco Giacobini, Eduardo Fajardo, Franco Ressel, Raf Baldassarre, Tito Garcia.

Guest Reviewer Lee Broughton is back, with another Italo Western double bill DVD review. Wild East’s ongoing Spaghetti Western Collection continues to grow and this double bill release is particularly welcome since it features two obscure and wholly idiosyncratic genre entries from 1969. Italian Western directors had found it relatively easy to appropriate key plot points and ideas from Sergio Leone’s Dollars films during the genre’s early years but when Leone’s sprawling, mega-budgeted, meta-Western Once Upon a Time in the West was released in 1968 it was clear that this was one genre entry that local filmmakers would not be able to easily emulate.

With scriptwriters and directors now essentially being forced to come up with their own ideas and generic trends, a new wave of Spaghetti Westerns were produced that effectively took the genre in a multitude of new directions. The two films featured here were part of that wave.

Full disclosure: The Amityville Horror films do not make up my favorite franchise. And it has nothing to do with the central “haunted house” premise, but rather the execution of the series thus far, from the serviceable ground zero template, The Amityville Horror (1979) through the (as yet unseen) upcoming Amityville: The Awakening, with some stops in between at DTVville (not to mention the Ryan Reynolds remake; but I said not to mention, so not mention I shall). The name is so shopworn now that “Amityville” has become synonymous with “poopy”.

But, but, But…let’s rewind to a time when a follow up to the kind-of goofy James Brolin (and his glorious perm) starrer was actually anticipated. That film was a smash success at the box office, and the powers that be wanted to revisit the village of Amityville to see what other demons they could find in the basement.

"The Most Beautiful Wife"   The 'double standard' between men and women reveals its roots in paternalistic barbarism, as demonstrated by this quality Italo crime picture about a young woman claimed against her will by a Mafia thug. The gorgeous star Ornella Muti makes her debut; the sinister Mafia punk is Alessio Orano. It's strong stuff, but not exploitative. La moglie più bella Blu-ray Twilight Time 1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date September 6, 2016 / The Most Beautiful Wife / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store24.95 Starring Ornella Muti, Alessio Orano, Tano Cimarosa, Pierluigi Aprà Cinematography Franco di Giacomo Production Design Umberto Turco Film Editor Antonio Siciliano Original Music Ennio Morricone Written by Damiano Damiani, Sofia Scandurra, Enrico Ribulisi Directed by Damiano Damiani

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

One doesn't expect an Italian crime film to help bring about social change, but this show may be an exception. Frankly, its dark them fits right...

Actress Rutanya Alda discusses her new book and her life in cinema. Rutanya Alda is a name long known to genre fans as a fine actress in quality productions. Her work in Brian De Palma’s The Fury, Fred Walton’s When A Stranger Calls, Lewis Jackson’s Christmas Evil, Damiano Damiani’s Amityville II: The Possession, William Lustig’s Vigilante,…

The post Exclusive Interview: Rutanya Alda on Amityville II, Brian De Palma and the Horrors of Mommie Dearest appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Sarah looks back at the Amityville films, and finds a lot of scary things, not all of which were intentional…

112 Ocean Avenue, Long Island is probably the most famous haunted house in the world. Not that you’ll necessarily recognise the address – it’s far better known as the Amityville Horror house. Back in 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved their family into the house… and then 28 days later, they moved back out, claiming to have been driven out by supernatural forces. Their story made the news, was turned into a book, and then made into a movie, in 1979.

It’s hard to imagine now that a family claiming to have encountered the devil in their basement could cause such a massive fuss, but I’m not here to interrogate the truth of their statement. What I am here to do, though, is to watch all of the Amityville Horror movies made to date,...

Above: 1960 poster by Jerzy Flisak for Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957)

One of my favorite Polish poster designers, or indeed favorite poster designer from any country, is Jerzy Flisak (1930-2008). Incredibly prolific—I’ve seen maybe 200 Flisak movie posters and he made many more during his 30 year career—Flisak started out as a satirical cartoonist. A cheerful, simple, almost childlike style is evident in much of his work, which tends towards the bright, bold and colorful, often peopled with rosy cheeked buxom ladies. Much of that work is terrific and quite well known—like his posters for The Fireman’s Ball and Paper Moon—but what draws me to Flisak is his work that pulls in the opposite direction: towards the more serious, abstract and monochrome. Before Flisak was a cartoonist he had studied architecture and there is a very strong sense of structure, space and form in his work.

Books and films have been joined at the hip ever since the earliest days of cinema, and adaptations of novels have regularly provided audiences with the classier end of the film spectrum. Here, the Guardian and Observer's critics pick the 10 best

• Top 10 family movies

• Top 10 war movies

• Top 10 teen movies

• Top 10 superhero movies

• Top 10 westerns

• Top 10 documentaries

• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s

10. Planet of the Apes

Although the source novel, La Planète des Singes, was written by Frenchman Pierre Boule and originally reached its futureshock climax in Paris, this enduring sci-fi fantasy is profoundly American, putting Charlton Heston's steel-jawed patriotism to incredible use. It also holds up surprisingly well as a jarring allegory for the population's fears over escalating cold war tensions.

Beginning with a spaceship crash-landing on an unknown planet after years of cryogenic sleep, Franklin J Schaffner's film soon gets into gear as Heston's upstanding...

We previously reported that Sergio Sollima’s The Big Gundown would be released by the good folks at Grindhouse Releasing. Now, we have the fine details. DVDActive reports that Grindhouse Releasing (by the way, it’s great to have them back after a long hiatus) is releasing The Big Gundown starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian in a 4 disc Blu-Ray & DVD Combo. Read on for the official press release. Can’t wait to see this since it has been a hard film to find.

From DVDActive.com

Sergio Sollima’s Run, Man, Run! has been available on remastered DVD for years, but its superior prequel, The Big Gundown has been missing from the digital home video landscape in the Us…until now. Grindhouse Releasing continues their comeback trail with the first even Us Blu-ray release of this classic film. Alongside Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General, The Big Gundown...

Chicago – Another week of Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming options for you to peruse courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com’s “What to Watch.” Every week, we gather a select few of the most recent Blu-ray & DVD releases, toss in at least one On Demand option we’ve seen, and present them in a checklist order for you to knock out through Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, or good, old-fashioned Blu-ray (yes, that sounds funny to me too). This week’s is the strongest yet by far. Everything in here is worth a look, all the way down to #9. This is just the order you should watch ‘em in more than anything else.

The Bling Ring

Photo credit: Lionsgate

“The Bling Ring”

I argued with a few people who saw Sofia Coppola’s wildly entertaining dissection of celebutante youth culture as too shallow and my counter is that most of those people don’t know...

This week: A party at James Franco's house rages on as the Apocalypse gets it on outside in the outrageous horror comedy "This Is the End," starring Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride and Craig Robertson and featuring cameos from numerous celebrities.

Also new this week is the based-on-a-true-story thriller "The Frozen Ground," "The Amityville Horror" Trilogy on Blu-ray, and "The Wizard of Oz" 75th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray 3D.

'This Is the End'

Box Office: $101 million

Rotten Tomatoes: 84% Fresh

Storyline: This end-of-the-world comedy follows six celebrities — James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson — as they're trapped in Franco's house in the Hollywood Hills at the beginning of the Apocalypse. After cabin fever sits in, they are eventually forced to leave the house and face their fate ... and discover the true meaning of friendship.

Extras!: Both the DVD...

Scream Factory will release The Amityville Horror Trilogy Blu-ray set this October and they’ve provided us with the final list of bonus features:

“Holidays arrive early this year for horror fans and pop culture enthusiasts. Prepare to bring home one of the most iconic haunted house movie collections! For the first time ever, experience three original classic Amityville horror films collected together on 3D Blu-ray! On October 1, Scream Factory is proud to present The Amityville Horror Trilogy Deluxe Collector’S Edition Three-Disc Blu-ray™ Pack. Featuring perfect high-definition picture visuals and purest digital sound available, this essential collection brings together The Amityville Horror (starring James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Oscar(R)-winner Rod Steiger), Amityville II: The Possession (starring James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Andrew Prine, Jack Magner, Diane Franklin) and Amityville 3D (starring Tony Roberts, Tess Harper, Candy Clark). Each movie from this collection is packed with extensive bonus features and more!

The Venice International Film Festival has announced the lineup for its 70th edition.

Official Competition

Es-Stouh (Merzak Allouache, Algeria/France)

L'Intrepido (Gianna Amelio, Italy)

Miss Violence (Alexandros Avranas, Greece)

Via Castellana Bandiera (Emma Dante, Italy/Switzerland/France)

Tom à la ferme (Xavier Dolan, Canada/France)

Child of God (James Franco, USA)

Philomena (Stephen Frears, UK)

La Jalousie (Philippe Garrel, France)

The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam, UK/USA)

Ana Arabia (Amos Gitai, Israel/France)

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, UK/USA)

Joe (David Gordon Green, USA)

The Police Officer's Wife (Philip Gröning, Germany)

Parkland (Peter Landesman, USA)

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan)

The Unknown Known: The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld (Errol Morris, USA)

Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, USA)

Sacro Gra (Gianfranco Rosi, Italy)

Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang, Chinese Taipei/France)

Out Of Competition

Space Pirate Captain Harlock (Shinji Aramaki, Japan)

Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, USA)

Summer '82 — When Zappa Came to Siciliy (Salvo Cuccia,...

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale to be guest host for the section at the 70th Venice International Film Festival where William Friedkin will receive a lifetime achievement honour.

Claudia Cardinale, best known for roles in Once Upon a Time in the West and Fellini’s 8 ½, is to be the guest host of Venezia Classici, the section devoted to restored films and to documentaries about cinema of the 70th Venice International Film Festival (August 28 – September 7.

The section, introduced last year, features a selection of classic film restorations completed over the past year by film libraries, cultural institutions or production companies around the world.

Cardinale will attend the screening of Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa, Luchino Visconti’s 1965 film in which she starred that won the Golden Lion at the 30th Viff and has been restored by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

It is is one of the four classics restored this year that has been conserved at the Historic Archives of the...

Italian director whose 1966 film A Bullet for the General, set in revolutionary Mexico, began a wave of 'tortilla westerns'

Damiano Damiani, who has died aged 90, was a director of Italian popular films and television. He was best known for La Piovra (The Octopus, 1984), an internationally successful TV series about the mafia, and made several mafia-themed films and TV movies, but his range was much wider.

Born in Pordenone, north-east Italy, he began his career in the 1940s, working in the art department and directing documentaries. As popular Italian cinema boomed in the 1960s, he began to make personal pictures, westerns, comedies, political thrillers and horror films. If you have only seen Amityville II: The Possession (1982), his one American movie, you have seen Damiani at his least inspired. In that film, the camera followed potential victims around a haunted house in a style made tedious four years earlier by John Carpenter's Halloween.

Amityville II

Directed by Damiano Damiani

Written by Tommy Lee Wallace

1982, USA

If Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap directed a movie, it would be Amityville II, because everything in this film is turned up to 11.

It has all the subtlety and grace of a jackhammer hitting a gas line and exploding into a fireball of sex, gore, incest, asshole fathers, holy-roller mothers, snarky demons, and homicidal kids. And this is meant in the most endearing way possible.

Despite its flash and bang, there are some subtly effective scenes , and every frame is awash with a dirty mood and tension. This is helped by a very creepy incestual storyline, and a father, played with a snarl by Burt Young, who is completely unhinged at all times.

Director Damiano Damiani brings his Italian sensibilities to a film that completely separates itself from the more restrained and typical haunted house film of its predecessor.

Special effects artist known for Et and the monster in Alien

If one asked filmgoers what they immediately visualise at the mention of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and Steven Spielberg's Et: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the majority would most likely name the creatures in the title roles – disgustingly malevolent in the former, and ugly but cuddly in the latter. The special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, who has died aged 86, was almost entirely credited with creating the character of Et, not only conceptually but also physically, and with actualising Hr Giger's designs for the murderous alien loose on a space ship. Rambaldi's work on these two blockbusters was recognised with Academy Awards (shared) for visual effects. For King Kong (1976), he shared a special achievement Oscar.

On the surface, these lauded, large-scale Hollywood movies seemed a world away from Rambaldi's beginnings as a designer, model maker and special effects man on...

One of the great pioneers of movie special effects, Carlo Rambaldi has died at his home in Italy after a long illness. He was 86.Rambaldi had recently been living in the southern Italian city of Lemezia Terme, but was born in the north, in the village of Vigarano Mainarda, in Emilia-Romagna. He attended Bologna's Academy of Fine Arts as a teenager, and had intentions of becoming a painter. But an offer from Italian director Giacomo Gentilomo to create a dragon for the film Sigfredo proved life-changing.Rambaldi's work immediately became a staple of Italian horror and fantasy cinema. He worked with the maverick likes of Mario Bava (Planet Of The Vampires, Twitch Of The Death Nerve) and Damiano Damiani (The Witch In Love), and had the dubious honour of having to legally prove that his work was pure artifice, when some unpleasantness with a dog in Lucio Fulci's...

In the bonus material for Blue Underground's Blu-ray release of A Bullet for the General, there is a five minute statement from the director, Damiano Damiani, in which he repeatedly declares that his film is a satire of westerns and shouldn't be considered among their number. This is an unfortunate belief, as it seems clear to me that A Bullet for the General is not only very much a western, but that it is also among the very best of the '60s crop of Euro westerns, Spahetti Westerns, and one that transcends some of its more popular, more gimmicky contemporaries. Whereas most Spaghetti Westerns relied on flash and gimmickry, A Bullet for the General builds a very engaging story around what could very easily have...

DVD Playhouse – May 2012

By Allen Gardner

Shame (20th Century Fox) Director Steve McQueen’s harrowing portrait of a Manhattan sex addict (Michael Fassbender, in the year’s most riveting performance) whose psyche goes into overload when his equally-troubled sister (Carey Mulligan) visits unexpectedly. Exquisitely-made on every level, save for the screenplay, which makes its point after about thirty minutes. While it tries hard to be a modern-day Last Tango in Paris, this fatal flaw makes it fall somewhat short. The much- ballyhooed sex scenes and frontal nudity are the least-interesting things about the film, incidentally, which is still a must-see for discriminating adults who seek out challenging material. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.

Being John Malkovich (Criterion) Spike Jonze’s madcap film of Charlie Kaufman’s script, regarding a socially-disenfranchised puppeteer (John Cusack) who finds a portal into the mind of actor...

By John Exshaw

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Anyone fortunate enough to be within a day’s ride of Dublin on Tuesday, 1 November, should saddle up bright and early to catch the Irish Film Institute’s 40th anniversary presentation of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dynamite, to be introduced by Leone biographer and Spaghetti Western top-gun, Sir Christopher Frayling. Also participating in the event will be director John Boorman, who assisted Leone in finding the locations used in the film’s Irish flashback sequences, and Ireland’s top special-effects expert, Gerry Johnston, who worked on the action scenes shot in Toner’s pub in Dublin’s Baggot Street.

Frayling, whose last appearance at the Ifi (introducing Once Upon a Time in the West) was the highpoint of the 2000 season, will use extracts from such films as John Ford’s The Informer...

Most people have seen at least one of the two versions of The Amityville Horror but not nearly as many have ever had the pleasure of viewing 1982's Amityville II: The Possession. This is a shame, because The Possession is arguably the best film in the entire Amityville canon. I know, that's not saying much -- but really, Amityville II is surprisingly fun.

This prequel was directed by Damiano Damiani and features performances from Burt "Yo, Paulie!" Young, Jack Manger, and James Olson. It's a fictionalized retelling of the story of the DeFeo family -- the owners of the house at 112 Ocean Avenue before the Lutzes of the first film. While what happened to the Lutzes is widely debated, there's no denying that real tragedy struck the DeFeos. Young son Ronny massacred the entire family one night with a rifle. It wasn't until after the Lutzes' story broke (years later...

"... They call him Silence, because wherever he goes, the silence of Death follows."

A gang of ruthless bounty hunters, for whom the "Alive" in "Dead or Alive" is mere filler, terrorise a snowbound mountain community, sanctioned by the town's corrupt Justice of the Peace, Pollicut (Luigi Pistilli) – who disposes of those he doesn't like by placing a price on their head.

Following the needless slaughter of her husband at the hands of the sadistic bounty killer, Loco (Klaus Kinski), Pauline (Vonetta McGee) enlists the aid of a wandering gunslinger, Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant), to avenge his death. The presence of Silence in the desolate town of Snow Hill brings events to a head between the besieged inhabitants and the bounty hunters, and as the black-clad, mute gunman seeks retribution; he can do nothing to halt the massacre that is on its way.

Sergio Corbucci brought a manically fresh perspective to the...

Jeffman from Head Full Of Snow recommends five Spaghetti Westerns not directed by Sergio Leone.

A bruised and battered stalwart of the late night cinema circuit, the Spaghetti Western held a bastardised, custom-job revolver to the head of its inferior American cousin and relieved it of both its basic premise and last shred of decency; joyously blurring the line between right and wrong and leaving morality swinging from a ragged noose in the hot, desert sun.

The Spaghetti Western was an Italian phenomenon, mostly financed by Rome's famous Cinecitta Studios, although there were plenty of co-productions with other Euro countries like Spain and Germany, even stretching as far afield as Israel if you count the soul-sapping awfulness that is God's Gun. One man is responsible for popularising the Spaghetti Western, Sergio Leone. If you're a follower of LateMag's frequent forays into the weird and wonderful worlds of cult cinema you'll probably know his films already.