Bloody Psycho

This atmospheric ghost film was chopped up to appear in bits in Lucio Fulci's patchwork film Cat in the Brain (aka Nightmare Concert), however, Fulci didn't direct it. Only available in Italian language to the best of my knowledge, though some grey marketers have a subtitled print.

Bloody Psycho (1989)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Low rent Italian horror film has Dr. Vogler (Peter Hintz) going to a castle to treat a wheelchair bound woman with some sort of psychic therapy. It doesn't take long for a mysterious zombie in a wheelchair to show up with plenty of dead bodies left behind.

BLOODY PSYCHO was one of the films that got released with the tagline "Presented by Lucio Fulci." The Italian horror market was clearly dried up during the late 80s but I guess producers thought they could milk whatever they could by throwing Fulci's name on the pictures. This film here could have been so much better had it been made with a budget a few years earlier but as it stands there's just not enough good things to be found.

The biggest problem is that there's so many dialogue scenes that really go nowhere. Yes, we understand the castle the haunted and we understand the doctor doesn't believe it. Hell, he doesn't even believe it when he sees the zombie figure. These dialogue scenes just aren't all that interesting and the lack of any real story doesn't help. The film does benefit from a semi-effective score as well as some nice cinematography by Silvano Tessicini.

The gore effects are minor but they include a tongue being pulled out and a rather stupid death by wheelchair. Some of these effects would later be seen in Fulci's A CAT IN THE BRAIN. Hintz is rather boring in his part but Louise Karnsteeg, Brigitte Christensen and Paul Muller add a little entertainment.

BLOODY PSYCHO (1989)

This is one of the most medíocre entries in the "Lucio Fulci Presenta" series. Worst than this only the abominable "Hansel E Gretel". I still need to watch "Luna De Sangue" and "Le Porte Dell'Inferno" to stablish a ranking of all the eight titles.

"Blood Psycho" has a terrible and confused plot, with an ending that made me wonder "what the hell was that?". And if the story in itself is a big mess, the uninspired direction by Leandro Lucchetti (who?) does its best to kill us of tedium. Watching this in the company of a criterious cinephile friend must be very funny, but, unfortunately, I checked it alone. Some scenes were embarrassingly ridiculous, like the horrendous flashback showing a silly incident that happened when the protagonist was a child. The scene, bearing a tacky sentimentality typical of soap operas, features two of the most inexpressive child actors I ever saw! Another atrocious moment involves the male protagonist with a woman on a bed doing sex games with yogurt in a stupid rip off of the already stupid "91/2 Weeks" (Adrian Lyne, 1986)!

The gore scenes are few and totally inefficient, mainly due to the poor choice of the menace, kind of a mummy riding a wheelchair (!), whose cheap aspect denounces how low was the budget. And the soundtrack, considered the only highlight by some reviewers on the web, doesn't help at all. Personally, I don't like when they put a "pop" theme to play during horror scenes. This was quite common in Italian horror cinema of the 80s, but I think it destroys any attempt at creating tension. The death scenes were so weak that I felt less bored during the many talky moments, despite the fact that the dialogues were mediocre and nothing interesting was discussed by the characters.

Of the entire cast, only Paul Müller can be saved, although like in other films of the series, he was wasted in an useless supporting role.

Is there anything I liked here? Well, yes, the late 80s feeling and the castle. I always appreciated old European castles and the one used here is fascinating. So bad that they wasted the chance of making a good ghost story.

Lucio Fulci can't be blamed, as it seems his name was merely used for commercial reasons, and he wasn't directly involved in these movies, except for the ones he directed.

BLOODY PSYCHO (1989) is another late-stage Italian horror movie made for television and with little to recommend it. The protagonist is a doctor who comes to stay with a disabled lady at her familial castle in order to practise some alternative therapy in the form of laying-on-of-hands treatment. While there he is tormented by the usual nightmarish visions and ghoulish apparitions.

Strangely this reminded me a lot of the Pete Walker film I saw at the weekend, THE COMEBACK, but it's not in the same class. The budget is low and the acting typically bad by late '80s standards. The real-life locations are okay and there's some gruesomeness in the form of a rotting corpse which keeps popping up to menace our hero, but it's all quite lacklustre. A lot of those Italian gothics from the 1960s had people prowling around cobwebby castles too, but the difference is that they were loaded with atmosphere while this isn't.

This is one of the five films legendary director Lucio Fulci supervised in 1989 to re-use some of the gory bits for his 1990 gorefest "A Cat in the Brain". "Bloody Psycho" features a haunted castle plus wimpy doctor Vogler,who is performing some sort of a psychic therapy on lesbian owner of the place.The insanely boring story features also a vengeful spirit of a wheelchair-bound rotting corpse.The bloody murder scenes are great with splattery tongue tearing and running over the neck with a wheel-chair.Unfortunately the pace is slower than slug and the story lacks suspense and surprises.Some scenes are downright stupid and annoying in its supposedly erotic manner for example the milk feeding.The use of a shattered television and a broken toilet is a nice touch,though.5 out of 10 mostly for grueling gore.