Il prato macchiato di rosso

Riccardo Ghione's amusing and self-aware black comedy takes a rather wry look at a very real concern in the early 1970s-

Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" was required reading on college campuses back in 1972 and the alarmist book "about the future and the shock that its arrival brings" was only a forerunner of the fears the "Me Decade" grappled with, especially on screen with nightmarish fare like WESTWORLD and DEATHRACE 2000. Two other 1973 cautionary tales, SOYLENT GREEN and TRAITMENT DE CHOC, also envisioned a cannibalistic future but THE BLOODSTAINED LAWN, the third in this futuristic triptych, goes "where no man has gone before" by making light of the rampant paranoia.

Amoral aristocrat Nina Genovese (Marina Malfatti, who looks a bit like Sharon Tate), her mad scientist husband (who looks a lot like Soupy Sales right down to the big bow ties), and the brother she's in love with bring a drunk, a hooker, a gypsy, and a pair of hippies back to their ultra-modern estate for some dope, orgies, and music but soon the guests disappear one by one to become the secret ingredient of a rejuvenating wine the depraved trio bottle and sell. Meanwhile, "special guest star" Nino Castelnuevo (Nino Newcastle??), he of CAMILLE 2000 fame, plays a UNESCO agent hot on their trail of blood...

Nina, dead serious about a superior race, makes good use of society's "disposables" in an increasingly over-populated world and insists to her love-struck brother that "only money brings happiness" as the decadent rich get yet another roasting, only this time on the lighter side and very well done. Director Ghione also has fun inverting "happy" clichés like lovers (in this case, the hippie couple) running in slo-mo over hill and dale (twice!) and the life-size "Robbie The Robot" gadget the villains use to extract their victim's lifeblood is more ridiculous than anything else. The hip-and-happening score is oh so "of its time" and the garish decade's flashy fashions and decor also serve the story well. It's (kind of) classy Eurotrash that doesn't take the doom-and-gloom predictions about the future too seriously and does for the wine industry what DEATH LAID AN EGG did for poultry farms.

More socio-political commentary masquerading as a horror film here, as a bunch of soulless rich Italians literally leech off the lower classes in order to make money from illegal medical shipments of blood to war torn nations throughout the world. That message comes across loud and clear. And camp and colourful and daft and ridiculous at the same time.

A strange man drives around an Italian town picking up a prostitute, a gypsy, a drunk guy, and two annoying hippy drifters. He takes them back to his modern home where his sister Nina (Marina Malfatti) and her weird husband Antonio live. Antonio is an eccentric scientist obsessed with biological perfection who has all sort of crazy robots lying around the place. He also sports a ridiculous large wardrobe of gigantic bowties that only add to his strangeness.

The drunk guy seems to be the only one who realises that he's stumbled into some modern version of Hansel and Gretel, only instead of being filled up with sweets and shoved in an oven, the evil rich people give you what you want (booze, jewels, etc) then suck all the blood out of the back of your neck using a bizarre robot that looks like Metal Mickey has gone off the rails pretty badly. Eventually the captives are whittled down enough and the hippies come out of their smug stupor and finally cotton on that they are next.

Meanwhile, there's this agent trapped in a sub-plot throughout the film that initially finds some wine bottles containing blood who is trying to trace everything back to his source. He doesn't get to do much, but I guess he turns up at the right time when needed. Most of the madness occurs inside the house however, my favourite being when Antonio invites everyone who is still alive at that point to enter a weird hall of mirrors he's designed...if only they'll jump through the giant plastic fanny he's using as a doorway!

This is the blackest of black comedy right here, but there are the odd effective bits of horror too, from the hippies finding a fridge full of dead bodies to the exsanguination of the prostitute. This is a fun watch for seventies horror fans.

The film is a spin on the mad scientist trope. Marina Malfatti and two men bring strangers to their mansion for something diabolical. Nino Castelnuovo is the agent trying to uncover what is going on.

Pros: The two leads, George Willing and Daniela Caroli are likable. They aren't given much to do, but they're in love and free-spirited and likeable. It's a shorter film.

Cons: Even though the film is short, there is a lot of filler here where people just dance. It's low budget. It seems like they spent most of their money on a particular sci-fi-looking item. The item itself looks like it belongs in a film from the previous decade. I was not thrilled by any of the sets/locations. There is not much in the way of atmosphere. This is a real dive for Marina Malfatti who has been in a number of good movies.

At the end of the day, you should skip this one.

This is a hallucinatory, somewhat drug-abuse themed horror movie which is kind of an Italian version of a "Coffin Joe" film like "Awakening of the Beast", and with the same subtext of social commentary. It's about a group of aristocrats (a husband, a wife, and the wife's brother) who are literally draining the blood of the people. They pick up the dregs of society--prostitutes, homeless hitchhikers, etc--and take them back to their isolated villa with its weird crimson-colored "bloodstained" lawn. They feed them drinks and weird drugs and engage them in wild orgies before hooking them to a strange machine which drains all the blood from their bodies,which they then package and sell in wine bottles!

This is an genuinely creepy movie. I know little or nothing about the director Riccardo Ghionne, but he definitely does a pretty effective job here. Enzo Tarascio, who plays the husband, is very creepy looking, especially during the orgy scene where he wears a bizarre, over-sized blue bow tie (which like the red lawn is a very off-kilter and disturbing image). His hard-as-nails wife is excellently played by Marina Malfatti, who was in a number of Italian gialli, usually as the second banana to more famous actresses like Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bouchet, or Erica Blanc. This is is one of her few leading roles and undoubtedly her best. The victims as per usual are a pretty hapless lot. Dominique Broschero plays a prostitute--she was a pretty prolific actress during this period, but I'm not very familiar with her previous work. The busty Barbara Marzano plays a female hitchhiker. She mostly did numerous, usually topless cameos in movies like "Torso", but her most famous role was probably in Ferdinand DiLeo's "The Seduction" where she played the sexually curious best friend of the teenage daughter of the girlfriend of the male protagonist, who he cheats on the teenage daughter with AFTER he cheats on his girlfriend with her daughter! Naturally, she's pretty desirable.

The statement this movie makes about the bottomless appetites of the Italian upper classes and the mindless pleasure-seeking of the lowers classes and the aimless youth is pretty blunt and obvious, but effective nevertheless. I was lucky enough to see this obscure but very rewarding movie with English subtitles, but the dialogue is probably the least interesting thing about it. Definitely recommended.

Having collected various strangers, a deranged and twisted family brings the group together in their home where it soon dawns on them how psychotic they are and must try to get away alive.

This one here was quite the enjoyable psycho-thriller. One of the more engaging parts of this one is the fact that there's quite a lengthy and prolonged first half that really does a great job at building a chilling and creepy atmosphere. The scenes of the group securing the different people, ranging from the different degenerates and hitchhikers in the various parts of town then bringing them back to their house under the guise of treating them well only to have the tables turned on them makes for a solid exploitation premise that features all the usual sleaze and nudity usually found there yet subtly instituting clues that something's not quite right along the way. From the couple's odd habits, finding the nude woman tied up in the bedroom and the psychedelic soundtrack playing over the orgy in the hall of mirrors, there's enough weirdness going on that it really makes for an appropriate set-up already so that once it turns around in the second half it's gradual induction of their strange machines kept hidden away really turns this one into quite the chilling effort. Once there, the raging thunderstorm and the reveal of their trap gives this a nice air that's magnified by the actual draining procedure conducted by the robot which is quite a surreal sight. There's quite a lot to really enjoy here with these elements, though there's a few minor problems with this one. The biggest issue is undoubtedly the confusing investigation going on alongside this one as it is so lazily shoehorned into the proceedings that it's quite obvious an afterthought by the short, quick-cut inserts they are placed into the film and interrupt the sleaze and exploitation in the remaining parts of the film. Likewise, this also tends to cause the film to stutter along with quite a rather plodding pace during this section and really keeps the film from unleashing it's full gimmick until quite late in here which is due to the rather unnecessary inclusion here. Otherwise, there's not much else really wrong here.

Rated Unrated/R: Full Nudity and drug use.