O Clube dos Prazeres

I saw it at Sitges this year and i was impressed by the quality of this crazy and bloody Italian flick. Zampaglione clearly knows his stuff and with this new film he shows all his love for the genre. . Tulpa visually looks fantastic,and it's a well performed addition to Italian cinema, most importantly it does what it intends to do, it remains faithful to the Giallo mentality, and breathes life back into a dead area of the horror/thriller genres.

Zampaglione even goes as far to bring back the traditional Giallo killer, a dark shadowy figure, with face covered, black hat, and those leather gloves . There are also some incredible and elaborated murders you will never forget. Giallo fans will love this one.

The film has a good plot but the nasty violence is unnecessary. Less violence and more graphic sex would boost the ratings.

It might be a strange to criticise this modern day giallo film for looking a little cheap; in their heyday in the early 70s, such genre films were never hugely budgeted.

This does have the look of an Indie film though, which is absolutely no problem in itself, but it robs the production of the stylish values usually attributed to the gialli.

The acting is fine, although Italian actors speaking English when it is not their first language damages it a bit. It also makes it difficult to care about the characters, which is unfortunate as many of them spend quite a few scenes in jeopardy.

I don't mean to be too damning here though. Any half-respectable reinvention of the gialli style is a good thing as far as I'm concerned, and there are some nicely filmed set pieces and some weird and fascinating red herrings - and a fair bit of sex too. My score is 6 out of 10.

Some great cinematography early on, the score is consistently nice and the creative/gory deaths are enjoyable to watch. Sadly, that's about it.

The acting in 'Tulpa - Demon of Desire' isn't the best, though I don't actually blame the cast - rather the filmmakers, who chose to shoot the majority of the film in English, despite having a mostly - if not entirely - Italian cast. The language choice makes it feel clunky and cheap.

I liked watching Claudia Gerini in the lead role, she does a solid enough job. There aren't any others I'd pick out, though. There are a few that play a big part, one in particular with the twist at the end - which is poorly executed. I do, meanwhile, give the film credit for how it mixes the sexual stuff into the story.

A bigger budget and cleverer writing could've made this great, instead it's a disappointment in my opinion.

If I were to judge the movie and rate it for quality, then one "star"/point out of ten would have been too much. Dialog, acting (if you can call it that), script in general, almost nothing seems to work. If you see it as a horror movie that is. So in keeping in tradition with the latest "Giallo" (not only the movie, but also) by Argento, it stays true to the master by being as ridiculous as possible.

Don't get me wrong there are good actors in this and it was produced by the wonderful Marcia Grazia Cuccinota, but those ingredients do not work. Which made me feel a bit bad for the filmmakers and the producers at the Frightfest screening were I watched this. Because most people were laughing and obviously the producers were stunned in a negative way about that development. Something that was one of the things people talked about after the screening.

So sit back, relax and prepare yourself for one of the most hilarious comedies you've seen in 2012. Even I had to surrender to the sheer weight of nonsense and couldn't resist laughing. Better than crying, I tell ya