Bloody Psycho

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.

Reportedly, scenes from this film were incorporated into Lucio Fulci's CAT IN THE BRAIN (1990) - along with snippets from his own TOUCH OF DEATH (1988; which I watched only last week) and GHOSTS OF SODOM (1988; which I missed out on recently due to a power cut!); incidentally, Fulci himself was the 'Presenter' of BLOODY PSYCHO - as well as RED MONKS (1988), another title I should get to pretty soon. While certainly better than TOUCH OF DEATH, it's still a film that perfectly evokes the rut into which low-grade European horror had fallen by the late 1980s (having preceded this by a superior giallo from the "Euro-Cult" heyday - Duccio Tessari's THE BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY [1971] - the gap in quality is all the more evident!).

The plot is a mish-mash of tried-and-true elements: there's the doppelganger theme, a remote castle as the setting of an old crime (with all the mystery and secrecy that it entails) - and to which an innocent is invited by way of a ruse, but whose presence is necessary so that a prophecy could be fulfilled (he is himself a spiritualist but doesn't realize that the murderous vision he keeps having is of his own death - shades of both DON'T LOOK NOW [1973] and Fulci's own THE PSYCHIC [1977] - until it is too late, that is!), etc. The film's tone is rather campy, what with the presence of the young, long-haired priest (who eventually emerges to be the leader of a community of diabolists!) and especially that of an alcoholic doctor - whose over-the-top performance, resorting to unintelligible raspy-voiced ranting and face-twitching in close-up, has to be seen to be disbelieved!

Still, the hero is a blank-faced youth and the major female characters all look alarmingly alike (but only one of them actually doubles as the ancient murderess - now reduced to a pile of goo and bones riding a wheelchair!); from the latter, I'm sure one can deduce that the film is basically just an excuse for a parade of slimy (yet risible) effects. Apart from featuring Jess Franco favorite Paul Muller in a small but pivotal role, the film benefits - if so it can be said - from a tolerable electronic score (though its sudden shift to a honky-tonk sound during a stint in the country provokes unintentional hilarity)...and there's even an unusual element of sexual tension present: a lesbian relationship between the 'paralyzed' mistress of the castle and her sluttish maid (which, alas, is barely touched upon) and also some highly unlikely sexcapades (one of them being an unorthodox milk-drinking session) between the hero and the murderess' grand-daughter that would be more appropriate in something like 9½ WEEKS (1986) - and which are even more incongruous when pitted against the wave of violent deaths surrounding them!! The rushed attempt at a multiple-twist ending, then, is utter nonsense - effectively delivering the well-deserved death knell to an already tired genre outing.

Dr. Vögler (Peter Hintz) is on his way to a castle inhabited by a wheelchair-bound chatelaine (Brigitte Christensen). She has a maid, Simona (Nubia Martini), to keep her company. Dr. Vögler, a famous pranotherapist, was called by the chatelaine to treat her. Pranotherapy is an alternative therapy that uses the hands as energetic healers.

On arriving to the gates of the castle Dr. Vögler is told by a clownish drunkard that there are ghosts in the uninhabited part of the castle. It was at this moment that he had for the first time a vision: a hand holding a bloody knife striking. This vision will reappear other times, each time more revealing. A clue, a warning... What? Inside the castle reigns a soap opera atmosphere - over-the-top dialogues, strange behaviors,threatening electronic score... And yes, in the uninhabited part of the castle there's a rotting corpse moving around with murderous intentions.

It looks like a horror film, but no, it isn't (at least not in in the traditional sense) - the suspense is almost nonexistent, it's slow and there's no much action to boast about (excepting some gory deaths), and definitely it's no cinematic highlight.

"Bloody Psycho" mixes mystery, deaths, a bit of gore, mawkish sentimentality, a good electronic soundtrack sometimes a bit inadequate (like in that scene scored by a joyous country tune!), and also some truly bizarre moments that left me wondering whether the director of the film was serious or joking.

In spite of all "Bloody Psycho" has some undeniable charm - the beautiful landscape, the score, the old cobblestone streets, the austere castle, the miniature sculptures - dark, brooding and distorted ...

In short, I've enjoyed "Bloody Psycho" - even if it's not a good film there's stuff enough for fans of psychotronic psychedelia.

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.

Well, I have the DVD of this movie here, in German language, and as it is written on the cover, Lucio Fulci has his fingers in this piece - though he isn't the director of this movie, it is said he used some of the stuff from it for "Touch of death", where he plays the main character (I haven't seen this piece up to now, so I can't confirm this). The plot is, more or less, boring and doesn't make a lot of sense - also, the gorehound has to wait a long time for the first worthwhile scene (the tearing out of a tongue) - also to mention maybe the scene where the main character confronts a strongly decomposed lady and the changing of bodies (the old lady takes a young one's). But if you don't get this DVD cheap, let it be - it ain't worth the money.