La villa delle anime maledette

I usually have a high level of tolerance for inept and cheaply made horror movies from the early 80s, especially if they come out of Italy, but I honestly had to drag myself towards the end of "Don't Look in the Attic", and constantly had to battle the urge not to press the fast-forward button. What an incredible dud of a film!

The plot is senseless, incomprehensible, and - worst of all - utterly boring. Three people that are related but don't know each other inherit a mansion in which their parents died in 1955. The mansion is supposedly in Turin, but I'm guessing it's in the middle of the zoo of Turin judging by the exotic animal sounds coming from outside. The mansion also comes with an ageing butler that pops up out of nowhere. There's a whole lot of whining about ancient family curses and conversations with tombstones, but zero action. The body count is low, and the couple of death sequences are ruined by miserable editing and lousy effects (like the woman who gets run over by a car). Terrible.

Writer/director Carlo Ausino previously made "Torino Violenta", which is one of the worst Poliziotesschi flicks from the 70s but still vastly superior over this nonsense.

During a séance, a woman is warned by the spirit of her dead mother- "DON'T GO TO TURIN....DON'T GO TO THE VILLA". So what does she do? Well, naturally, she high-tails it to Turin, and heads straight for the villa. Said villa, which she and her siblings have recently inherited, is haunted by malevolent spirits who enjoy driving people nuts and turning lights red. By the time our dim-witted leading lady finally looks in the attic, you'll most likely be in a deep slumber. Who cares, though? You will miss absolutely nothing of interest, and any dream you may have will be infinitely more entertaining than this uninvolving, crudely dubbed Eurotravesty.

3.5/10

Well, I'm an Italian horror big fan and I love movies from directors such Argento, Fulci, Bava Sr and Bava Jr, only to quote the most famous. "La villa delle anime maledette" is one of the most unknown movie of this genre, shot when this kind of cinema began its crisis that continues still today, and director Carlo Ausino sounds totally new to my ears (althoug he directed six movies... this is the price Italian directors have to pay to not work in Rome...) . But the film is not so bad. And it's absolutely not correct to talk about "trash". OK, the plot is not so original; it reminds me stuff like the Amytville series (the year is the same of "Amityville Possession" by Damiano Damiani) or "Shock", the last work of Mario Bava. But you have to think that this is the movie of a cinematographer (like Mario Bava movies); so the most important thing is the atmosphere, not the story or the characters; atmosphere very well created by the use of light and by the camera movement. The rest remain in the background. I think the movie works; not so good, but works; it's surely better than a lot of Hollywoodian production like "the Haunting" which have a bigger budget, but not bigger ideas...

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Don't Look In The Attic; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story - 0.25 Direction - 0.50 Pace - 0.25 Acting - 0.75 Enjoyment - 0.75

TOTAL - 2.50 out of 10

Oh my God, this movie is so bad that I kinda loved it. Though, I was irked by the story's possibility. There is enough scope within to scribe a classic horror tale.

I once read in a review that writer/director films are better as they allow for their vision of the story to reach the screen. That only works if the writer/director is talented. Unfortunately, with Don't Look In The Attic, they're not. There are so many holes in the story, be it structural or narrative, that I wouldn't be able to start to critique them - so I won't.

As for the direction side, I can easily comment on that. For one, the pace meanders along slower than the story. And, I will say this for the director; he must have known because he did try to alleviate the monotony in pre-production. There's a particularly lovely ginger pussy that appears during a bout of exposition. There's a conversation between three people, and it's shot at a dreadful angle and too-close a range. It feels and looks awkward. Enter the inserted shots of the pussycat reclining on the leather cushion of an armchair. There's no need for them, apart from breaking up the nastiness, and they're filmed on a different stock. If anything, the cat shots are crisper than the rest of the movie. But I can't knock it too much I'm a pussy lover, not a dog man. Though, the mishap that had me smiling the most was the soundtrack. The mansion they are staying in is in Turin and miles from anywhere. Imagine my surprise hearing the sounds of the jungle in the background, complete with screeching monkeys. Not satisfied with using it once they use the same sound segment throughout the film. It always brought a smile, and I expected to see Tarzan, Cheeta, and Jane swing in on a vine. It would have made for a better picture - he meant to get the most for his budget! There are more, many more, but they were my faves.

The cast isn't too bad. Though, what can you expect(?) It must have been evident reading the script how bad the film would be, so why put too much effort into it? Just turn up, have fun, get paid - I hope they got paid.

If you love bad movies, check out Don't Look In The Attic. Otherwise, stay the hell away. I don't want to be responsible for upsetting somebody; life's too short - Especially to watch this flick.

Please feel free to visit my Absolute Horror and Killer Thriller Chiller lists to see where I ranked Don't Look In The Attic. Better yet, you can search for better viewing.

Take Care & Stay Well.

A group of heirs to a mysterious old mansion find out that they have to live in it as part of a clause in the will or be disinherited, but they soon find out of its history of everybody whom had lived there before them having either died in weird accidents or having had killed each other.

You've seen it all before, and this one is too low-budget and slow paced to be scary, and doesn't have any real surprises in the climax. No special effects or gore to speak of, in fact the only really amusing thing about the whole film is the quality of the English dubbing, which at times is as bad as a cheap martial arts movie.

3 out of 10, pretty low in the pecking order of 80's haunted house movies.