A Tortura

A distorted 'torture' video is shown to prospective actresses and the interviews take place in a theatre which looks like a multiplex with a circle(my favourite species of multiplex). The video is nearly monochrome with bright red blood. The cinematic story is interesting as are the actresses who make their characters credible. The reality of the story comes to light in the second half where the effects are far more realistic, and this main body of the film is done very well indeed, and even the rough sex does not look ugly. There are three prints to choose from: an Italian print classified 14, which I haven't seen so cannot say if it is cut, a South American print, and a Dutch Eurocult print which impressed me and which is definitely uncut. This isn't quite torture porn perfection like Martyrs and Pernicious, but it is a worthwhile contribution to the subgenre and is presented as a modern Gothic Giallo. This is another film which attracts a lot of unconstructive critiscism, mostly because of its violence. It isn't actually happening, guys.

The twenty-four year-old aspirant actress Ginette Cazonni (Elena Bouryka) goes to an audition with the underground director Alex Scerba (Simone Corrente) and they have one night stand. Ginette finds one earring identical to the one that belongs to her friend Marzia Foster that has been missing for three days on the stage and keeps it with her.

Alex invites Ginette to go to his studio and they go to an isolated house where she meets Alex's deranged mother and his stepfather and producer, but soon Ginette returns home. When she calls Marzia again, she learns that her friend had also gone to an audition with Alex and has never returned home. Ginette suspects that Alex might have abducted her friend and she decides to break in Alex's parental house to investigate and to find Marzia's fate. Meanwhile three other women go to the theater to have an audition with Alex and they are tortured. Will Ginette have the same destiny of the other women?

"The Torturer" is a trash combination of giallo with exploitation by Lamberto Bava with sexy women and torture. The stupid story shows female characters that are dumb sluts and the identity of the torturer is totally predictable. The Russian model Elena Bouryka is very hot and makes the film worthy with her sensuality and erotic scenes. The DVD released in Brazil does not have the original Italian audio and is awfully dubbed in English. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Tortura" ("The Torture")

Like most of his Italian contemporaries Lamberto Bava's career as a feature film director more or less ran into the ground by the end of the 80's. The money in the Italian industry moved into the television environment and subsequently most of the film-makers who had worked in cinema started making stuff for the small screen. Bava was no different and seems to have operated in TV oblivion since those days. So it was good to see that he had stepped back into making cinematic output in 2005 with this film, The Torturer.

Having just seen it, it seems quite obvious that the level of production value available to Italian genre film-makers had dropped dramatically over the intervening years and consequently this comes across as a very cheap movie indeed. It follows the trend of the day in that it is a torture flick that revels in sadistic violence in a similar way to the American big hitters Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005). I don't particularly have any objection to this, nor do I mind that it is shamelessly derivative. Copycat movies can often be a lot of fun and sometimes more of the same is kind of what you want. What was an issue here though was the sheer cheapness of the production and the general resultant ropiness that comes along with this. The story-line is half-hearted to say the least and isn't really worth restating. The plot-line is really no more than an excuse to show half-naked women being tortured and terrorised. It sounds quite sleazy and it is really but its alleviated a lot by its general low quality presentation. The dubbing is atrocious, more like the level of a 70's chopsocky production that an Italian film, while there is more or less a complete absence of style not helped by the whole thing seeming to have been shot on digital video. So what we have is ultimately a pretty unpretentious and straightforward bit of horror trash. It's difficult to recommend this one too much on account of its significant deficiencies. It's not in the same league as Bava's better work clearly but it was still good to see him at least make a newer horror film even if it's a not very good one.

This is only the fourth effort from Bava Jr. that I've watched – not counting the co-directing credit on his father Mario's last film, THE VENUS OF ILLE (1978); the others were BLASTFIGHTER (1984), DEMONS (1985) and DELIRIUM (1987). I hadn't been impressed thus far, and this latter-day giallo with the current (regrettable) torture-porn mentality certainly didn't improve his lot – if anything, it further sank his chances of ever hoping to equal his old man's influential achievements!

Being shot on Digital, the film displays no style whatsoever and looks ugly into the bargain; as for the plot, it's strictly by-the-numbers fare and, therefore, wholly uninvolving. A handsome young man is revealed to have had a disturbed childhood – cue an excruciatingly annoying and recurring ditty – so that we're led to believe that he's the titular figure (especially since the victims are aspiring actresses who had just been auditioning for the would-be boy genius). Then comes the admittedly stunning heroine – who's really there to probe into the fate of a friend who's gone missing but, lo and behold, she instantly falls for the hero. Also involved is his domineering father-in-law/agent and mother (a Daria Nicolodi wannabe) who's all-too-obviously crackers.

Needless to say, Bava Jr. lazily opts to pile up, and linger on, the gore (and nudity) rather than – pardon the pun – pump new blood into the exceedingly tired situations. As I said, the revelation – of both the reason behind our hero's torments and the villain's identity – provides no surprise at all, nor the fact that the heroine is rescued (by her lover's mother, who suddenly regains her senses!) in the nick-of-time from a fate worse than death. For what it's worth, I have a bunch of other titles by Lamberto on hand – namely GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE (1987), UNTIL DEATH (1987), THE PRINCE OF TERROR (1988) and THE OGRE (1988) – which I may or may not get to in time for this Halloween challenge

Really, the only positive thing I can tell you about the entire torturing movie is that the name definitely fits perfectly. The movie being the torturer and anyone watching it being the tortured. Plot, the lighting, camera-work, acting, everything... just utter crap. I guess you could call it original seeing as it's the only movie that was bad enough to make me not want to turn it off (which I don't often do I might add) but keep watching for laughs at it's creators. This also is the only movie that has actually managed to make me want to register and write a comment here about it, especially after reading some semi-positive replies about it.

This movie was rock bottom, and watching it might cause brain damage.

Watch at your own risk.