Contronatura

A rich old man and his greedy group of hangers-on get stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down (in a thunderstorm, of course) and the motley crew make their way to an old dark house where they interrupt a seance that reveals their deadly secrets...

What's basically an Agatha Christie murder mystery set in the Roaring Twenties gets all supernatural in the last ten minutes but it's too little too late for anyone expecting a horror film. Although flashbacks help open things up, it's still a "drawing room whodunit" at heart with nice period detail (except for the hairdos) and a bit more style than usual for this sort of thing. The (brief) sex scenes are lesbian (were they "the unnaturals"?) but not erotic and the movie's nothing to get excited about, either, despite its reputation as one of the director's best.

To be fair there were some fine moments in this, particularly towards the end, when we actually get to see the action that has been thus far only talked about. Also despite prim early scenes we suddenly get solid girl on girl scenes, one verging on the non consensual, which is unusual. Also as the film climaxes we do get some great shots of eyes, giallo style, wide and fearful but by then it has been a long time coming. Again I have to confess the early scene in the woods in the storm is very well done but once we get to the house (yes, old dark house style) things do begin to drag. There are flashbacks to another big house but it does nothing to relieve the tedium of this extremely wordy piece. Card games, a prolonged seance sequence - are you getting excited, no, not me either. Real shame because everybody performs well, there is good photography and there are enough great moments to make one wish there had been just a few more. The low score is in part to remind me that I would not want to see this again and not that this is completely without merit.

It's the second time I read this page and I can't understand why Contronatura (aka Schreie in der Nacht aka The Unnaturals)is still waiting for 5 votes! In fact, I think, it's a really good italian horror, a kind of "summa" of all themes of this particular genre. The director, Antonio Margheriti (also writer, in this case) is very skillful and builds his movie around a number of impossible flash-back, that articulate a disquieting narrative of murders, guilty men, strange women...I can't speak english very well, so I can't describe in the right way this movie, but if you like italian horror, you have to see Contronatura!

To be honest, despite my more than fair knowledge of the "Euro-Cult" style of film-making, I only recently became aware of this particular title – where it was even described as possibly Margheriti's best work; having watched THE UNNATURALS for myself now, I would actually be hard-pressed to disagree with that assessment: it certainly ranks among the top three efforts by this major exponent that I am familiar with, along with two other Gothic horror entries i.e. THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964) and SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE (1973). For the record, this is a German-Italian co-production to which the director himself contributed the script – a highly atmospheric chiller (with a séance figuring prominently throughout) yet boasting an atypical elegance due to its 1920s England setting. Interestingly, the plot more or less harks back to vintage "old dark house"-type pictures (emanating from this very era i.e. the last days of Silent cinema) and which revolved around a gathering at some remote location for the sake of an inheritance that goes terribly wrong, resulting in a murder spree; actually, this takes things a bit further (also taking advantage of the permissiveness of the age with its inclusion of by-now quite mild instances of nudity) – where the vicissitudes of the crime are slowly assembled via multiple flashbacks (unveiling various illicit affairs, both financial and romantic, into the bargain) and the whole set-up ultimately revealed to be an elaborate retribution (incorporating surprisingly neat, i.e. not heavy-handed, apocalyptic connotations) from beyond the grave! Though somewhat undercast, there are still a few familiar faces among the actors recruited for the movie – Joachim (DEAD EYES OF London [1961]) Fuchsberger, Claudio Camaso (a Tomas Milian look-alike but really the younger brother of Gian Maria Volonte' whose life ended in tragedy!), Marianne Koch (from A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS [1964] and exhibiting here lesbian tendencies which prove her undoing in both the past and present time-frames of the narrative), Dominique (FANTASTIC ARGOMAN [1967]) Boschero and, of course, Luciano Pigozzi (distinguished by his uncanny physical resemblance to Peter Lorre) in perhaps the most significant role of his prolific career. For fear of repeating myself (see the concluding statement in my AMUCK! [1972] review elsewhere), the appropriately old-fashioned strains of Carlo Savina's score provides one further reason to enjoy this – for "Euro"-buffs and adventurous movie fans alike; it goes without saying, then, that this is a title that ought to sustain a lot more than the current semi-obscure reputation I alluded to at the start...

"The Unnaturals" isn't nearly on par with director Antonio - oh sorry, he prefers Anthony M. Dawson - Margheriti's best efforts in the genre, notably "Danza Macabra" and "The Long Hair of Death", but it's nonetheless a worthwhile and enjoyable gothic soap opera. The film benefices most from the unsettling atmosphere, genuine décors and the bright use of mandatory gothic aspects, like raging thunderstorms and enigmatic beauties. A bunch of greedy and self-centered people, each of them hiding dark secrets and/or scheming sinister plans, end up in a ramshackle old shed in the woods when their car gets stuck in the mud. Inside the cabin, a spooky old hag is stuck in a sort of bizarre trance, but her equally spooky son (Bava-regular Luciano Pigozzi) invites the guests to partake in an all-revealing séance. The pacing is often slow, and the flashbacks contain too many tedious and irrelevant parts, but the last 10-15 minutes make up for a lot. The seemingly everlasting thunderstorm causes havoc, which ensures a spectacular and unforeseeable climax.

PS: I'm not in the habit of criticizing DVD-releases, but in case you consider purchasing this film via the French label "Les Chefs-d'oeuvre du Gothique", I strongly recommend you NOT TO. Despite being quite expensive, the picture and sound quality are poor, the disc constantly falters and the audio switches back and forth between Italian and German.