Pensione paura

It feels like two different movies. The first 2/3 is an incredible film! Leonora Fani is great as the lead. The supporting cast play sleazy very well. Damn near everyone here is a sleazy monster. The is incredible tension. Great character moments. A real mystery afoot. And it's all directed and filmed with incredible style.

In the last third of the film, it all falls apart. It abandons everything that came before it and blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Even worse, it squanders all the intrigue that had come before. Barilli is a skillful director. I just wish he could have gotten his hands on a good script.

Pensione Paura (Fear Hotel on the print I saw) is a decent, slow-burning thriller.

Set toward the end of WWII, Leonora Fani plays Rosa, a girl living in a hotel owned by her mother. Her father is away in the war and Rosa writes letters she cannot send to him. The hotel's guests are a strange and unlikeable group hiding out from the war. There is a pimp with his two prostitutes, a widower with an unhealthy fixation on Rosa, an older rich woman with a younger lover named Rudolph (Luc Merenda). This gigolo has his eyes on Rosa. In addition, hidden away in an upstairs room is the lover of Rosa's mother. He deserted the war and is rumored to have caused some tragedy to his fellow soldiers. Right from the beginning, there is a sexual tension between these guests and Rosa. Then, Rosa's mother dies in an accident. Rosa is left alone to run the hotel with only one drunken, unhelpful servant. The viewer knows something bad is going to happen. Further suspense comes with the arrival of two last guests, both men dressed in black, one carrying a switchblade. Both have the look of professional killers. Have they came for the lover hidden away or for some other reason?

Fear Hotel does a surprisingly good job at building a tense atmosphere. Little happens for most of the movie but, thanks to the actors and the evocative cinematography, the viewer keeps watching. However, there are some problems. The film's attempt to become a murder mystery in the last third does not work. The finale, while appropriately grim, has a denouncement that did not work for this viewer.

Having acknowledged these, Fear Hotel was better than expected. Leonora Fani, the attractive star of Kyra (aka House by the Edge of the Lake), was the reason I watched Fear Hotel. In addition to her physical charms, Fani convinces as an innocent teenager, even though she was in her early twenties at the time of filming.

Francesco Barilli had already proved a great talent for creating a nightmarish atmosphere with his most famous film "Il Profumo Della Signora in Nero" (1974), and while that film is a true gem I liked his second Giallo, "Pensione Paura" of 1977 even more. With only few murders and an obscure storyline that is not mainly concerned with a murder series, "Pensione Paura" is no typical example for the Giallo-genre, but an incredibly moody one. Set in a guest house in rural Italy in the final stages of WW2, "Pensione Paura" maintains a thick and nightmarish atmosphere that makes the film seem like a gloomy fever dream at times. Beautiful yet incredibly eerie, the film oozes a constant atmosphere of doom that is intensified by beyond demented characters and a magnificent score that stands out even in the good company of Italian genre soundtracks.

When World War 2 nears its end, Rosa (Leonora Fani) and her mother Marta (Lidia Biondi) are keeping their eerie old guest-house open for a bunch of demented guests, among them the sleazy and sinister playboy Rodolfo (Luc Merenda), as well as Marta's lover (Francisco Rabal) who is hiding out from someone. Rosa, who is eagerly awaiting her father's return from the war is writing letters to him on a daily basis... Giving too much information about the plot would spoil a part, which is why my plot description ends here. As in any Giallo, of course, there is a series of murders involved, and the beautifully but decaying old rural guest-house is the eeriest setting imaginable. Leonora Fani is great in her leading role of the innocent teenage girl, a character it is easy to feel and be scared for. The rest of the characters are almost entirely demented, and the performances are great. Regular Italian cult leading-man Luc Merenda ("Torso", "Milano Trema", "L'Uomo Senza Memoria",...) is brilliantly sinister in his sleaziest role as the pencil-mustached womanizer Rodolfo, who has an older girlfriend but is also pursuing the innocent young Martha. The great Spanish character actor Francisco Rabal ("Dagon", "Nightmare City",...) is equally great.

"Pensione Paura" is a fantastic example for the atmospheric power of Italian Horror film. Without showing anything explicitly 'horrible' in the first half, the film maintains an eerily beautiful and uniquely nightmarish atmosphere of pure gloom from the very beginning to the very end. The remote rural setting with the gloomy guest-house and the nearby picturesque village create a menacing mood of seclusion and being lost. The brilliant score by Adolfo Waitzmann must be one of the most mesmerizing ever. While the film is not very gory by Italian Horror standards, it is completely uncompromising. I am not sure why Francesco Barilli regrettably has not directed many more films that were released in cinemas, a possible explanation could lie in the lack of gory and spectacular murders in comparison to the films other Italian Horror/Giallo masters. Overall, "Pensione Paura" is a must-see for anyone interested in Eurohorror, Giallo and Cult-Cinema. Very Highly Recommended!

This is the second film I've watched from little-known director Barilli; like the first – the slightly superior THE PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK (1974) – it can be labeled an arty horror film…though, frankly, there's much more of the former than the latter this time around! In fact, it's set during World War II in a downtrodden Italian hotel run by a woman (whose husband is a flyer) and her innocent young daughter.

Apart from the somewhat wasted Francisco Rabal (as a partisan informer hiding out in the titular hotel and a paramour of its owner), the casting looks rather unimpressive on paper but, surprisingly, we get a couple of excellent performances from the two nominal leads – 23-year-old Leonora Fani (as the harassed daughter who is an object of desire to several of the hotel's guests!) and an unheralded sleazy turn from usual 'good guy' Luc Merenda (as a shady stud living off a rich mature keeper). Both Merenda and Fani are involved in several nude scenes and, in the latter's case, looking much younger than her true age makes for some disturbing viewing (particularly her rape by Merenda himself – witnessed by the latter's mistress and by which she's visibly aroused!).

The film has a memorably sinister soundtrack by one Adolfo Waitzman which may best be suited to accompany a bona-fide giallo, but it certainly elevates the end product considerably; the composer's name didn't register with me at first, but a quick check on his IMDb resume' soon revealed him to also be the man behind the music for (at least) two other significant "Euro-Cult" efforts – Jess Franco's THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR (1973) and Claudio Guerin Hill's A BELL FORM HELL (1973). Also notable in PENSIONE PAURA, the film's original title, is the atmospheric lighting – where the adoption of various color gels for disquieting effect was, in all probability, directly influenced by Dario Argento' contemporaneous classic of supernatural horror SUSPIRIA (1977).

As with most efforts from this genre, the major liability would have to be its deliberate pacing – however, since the film is a mood-piece first and foremost, I guess it was to be expected and, well, unavoidable. Still, the shock moments (when they come) certainly deliver the goods – with the most effective being the double axe-murder of Merenda and his lover (with its slimy aftermath), and the last-minute rescue of the heroine (about to be victimized yet again) which turns into a machine-gun massacre of the hotel's entire guest list by an as-yet unidentified character (soon revealed to be a partisan companion of Fani's reportedly deceased father). The latter scene actually leads immediately into the unexpected and ambiguous conclusion – which seems to be a particular thorn with most viewers discussing the film on an Italian forum; then again, a happy ending would have been highly unlikely for an essentially somber piece such as this!

Until the fairly recent Italian DVD release, this was considered a very rare item even on its home turf; hopefully, the film's reputation will soar in future…even though it's one the director himself seems not to like much at all (undeservedly, if you ask me)!

In all honesty I right away have to admit this won't exactly become my most informative and insightful user-comment, as I watched "Pensione Paura" in its original Italian language print without any subtitles or dubbing whatsoever. Throughout several years of watching Italian films I picked up a few words here and there, especially horror-related ones, but of course not nearly enough to fully comprehend the convoluted plot and structure of a typical Giallo. This should also give you an idea of how rare this film is; as I literally searched all over the Internet for an original VHS copy or at least a halfway decent bootleg DVD, and all I could find was this crummy, ancient and exclusively Italian version. Luckily enough a genuine Italian 70's Giallo has plenty more to offer than just plot-complexity, and since the same guy who brought us "The Perfume of the Lady in Black" also directed this "Pensione Paura", I hoped to see an enormously stylish & visually impressive effort with gritty undertones and uncanny musical guidance. Well okay, the film didn't nearly turn out as enchanting as the aforementioned "Perfume…" but multiple scenes and set pieces are beautiful to look at and, even though I don't understand one iota of the dialogs, you can easily tell the subject matter is compelling. "Pensione Paura" translates as guest house of fear, and that's pretty much the most accurate description I can give. Rosa is timid and frigid young girl who helps her mother running the family pension whilst her father is serving in WWII. The place is filled with sleazy and ill-natured guests, including a married man who constantly attempts to abuse Rosa and the mother's secret lover who lives hidden away in the attic. When the mother is found murdered one morning, Rosa remains behind unprotected and surrounded by people with wicked intentions. She gradually loses her sanity, but just when the guests collectively plot to involve her in a giant orgy a masked and heavily armed man appears to the scene. I realize this is all rather vague, but it's better than giving false plot-information. "Pensione Paura" sadly doesn't feature many bloodily staged murder sequences or graphic sleaze, but the atmosphere is noticeably ominous and grim. Adolfo Waitzman's score is terrific and the cast features a couple of familiar faces, like Luc Merenda of "The Violent Professionals" and "Torso" and Francisco Rabal who recently (and just before passing away) starred in Stuart Gordon's "Dagon". This is a very interesting film, to say the least, and if anyone knows of an available copy with English subtitles please mail me ;)