Non aprite quella porta 3

I recently watched the Italian slasher 🇮🇹 Night Killer (1990) on Tubi. The story follows a woman with a tragic past, having survived an attack that caused amnesia. She moves to the countryside to find peace, but soon begins receiving phone calls from a man who wants to date her. Meanwhile, a serial killer is on the loose in town. Could the calls and the killer be connected?

The film is co-directed by Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2) and Bruno Mattei (Zombie 3) and stars Peter Hooten (Orca), Tara Buckman (The Cannonball Run), and Richard Foster (Talking to Strangers).

Night Killer is a wild movie with over-the-top costumes and masks. The storyline and circumstances are somewhat cliched and straightforward, and the acting and dialogue are inconsistent and off at times. However, the kills are entertaining, and the gore is well-executed, with added scenes that were added-in after the original production specifically for extra shock value. There's also some classic Italian horror nudity, and a soundtrack that's as cheesy as some of the plot points. Despite its flaws, there's just enough here to keep horror fans engaged.

In conclusion, Night Killer is an uneven addition to the horror genre but worth a watch for enthusiasts. I'd score it 5.5-6/10 and recommend it with the right expectations.

The day Claudio Fragasso (or Clyde Anderson, as he prefers to call himself) dies and arrives at the gates to confront Saint Peter for the trial whether he belongs in heaven or hell, I strongly advise him to plead "temporary insanity" for the year 1990! I don't know what Fragasso smoked back then, but it must have been great stuff! How else would you explain the fact that he spawned both "Troll 2" and this "Night Killer" in in and the same magical year? These two films are extremely different in terms of content and atmosphere, but both are incredibly awful yet wondrously absurd and insanely entertaining. "Troll 2" is legendary trash-heritage and world-famous, whereas "Night Killer" is obscure and unknown. Undeservedly so, I must emphasize, as this utterly bonkers horror oddity should urgently be discovered by all fans of slasher movies, rape & revenge thrillers, gialli and bizarre cult films in general!

You know that indescribably joyous feeling you experience when watching something truly bad and amateurish, but simultaneously so much fun? Well, "Night Killer" guarantees this feeling from start to finish! According to notes in the trivia-section and some random interviews I read on the internet, Fragasso initially intended for this film to be a psychological thriller without gore, but behind his back the producers instructed Bruno Mattei to shoot an additional load of nasty and sleaze-laden sequences. Personally, I think this is a bunch of nonsense. Fragasso is simply incapable to pen down a serious psychological thriller and, besides, he and Mattei have been best friends and business partners since the late 70s already, so I find it difficult to believe Mattei would "betray" his buddy Fragasso like this. "Night Killer" is indeed unstructured, clumsily edited and totally senseless, but that's just the regular way these two geniuses work together. Pure entertainment is what matters, and "Night Killer" delivers.

The film opens marvelously, with 2 random beauties in standard 80s aerobic outfits savagely getting slaughtered during their dance rehearsal by a maniac in a monstrous mask and a glove with sharp claws. You'll read in other reviews that the killer's mask resembles Freddy Krueger's face, but the people who wrote that should urgently re-watch the entire "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. The mask looks like an ugly demon's face, mutilated by a flamethrower and then resurrected again. The claws on the glove are clearly made of rubber, and yet the maniac manages to bore holes through women's stomachs with them! The script then suddenly seems to realize the 1980s are over, so the action moves away from the dance academy. Our sick killer subsequently targets beautiful single mother Melanie Beck, and stalks her with obscene phone calls before perpetrating into her house. Maybe, just maybe, Melanie is a logical choice because she fondles her naked breasts while talking to herself in the mirror. He attacks and viciously rapes Melanie, but she survives the attack and enters in a state of shock and complete amnesia. Melanie escapes from the hospital and attempts to commit suicide, but the poor thing runs into a crazed madman again and he holds her captive in a sleazy motel room. The film then insists that we believe Melanie's new kidnapper, Axel, is the same person as the ugly mask murderer, and meanwhile he also cheerfully continues to slay other women, like a prostitute with whom he enacts a perverted Little Red Riding Hood role-play! If you think "Night Killer" can't possibly get any more jaw-droppingly absurd or delirious, just wait until you witness the completely deranged denouement!

But now for the hardest part of this review. How to possibly rate this fantastic piece of rubbish? In terms of sheer entertainment, I'm honestly tempted to reward "Night Killer" with a perfect 10/10, simply because I was rejoiced from start to finish and even watched some key sequences several times because I couldn't believe my eyes the first time. Other arguments for a high rating are the fast pacing, the copious amounts of reasonably decent make-up effects and the truckload of bloodshed and perversion. A massive score is also quite misleading, of course, because "Night Killer" inarguably remains pure trash with terrible acting and lousy scripting. Still, I had a tremendous great time and I give it 8/10. Finally, one last example of unscrupulous and typically Italian horror marketing. The "official" title of the film is "Non aprite quella porta 3", which literally translates as "Don't Open That Door 3". It's the local title under which the horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" got released in 1974, and thus they wanted everybody to think this was a sequel. Never mind the fact there isn't a chainsaw in sight, and the producers also didn't take into consideration that the actual "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part III" also came out later that same year, in 1990.

The movie is awfully good. It doesn't have any good characters, the directing is horrendous, the cutting is mushy, the score is bad and the whole movie is great.

I laughed my ass off when I watched the movie. Don't expect any good movie. You just gonna have to watch Night Killer without your brain, brainlessly.

P.S. why is it called Non aprite quella porta 3? Did they think that they are gonna skip the previous two movies and make the third one. I just want to know that.

I think that's all the information you need. Must be seen to be believed.

Alright, the monumentally bad acting from everyone involved in this project is only the icing on the cake. The much-ballyhooed "added gore" is essentially one effect. This killer definitely has a favorite method. All the added footage by another director is poorly shot, so it sticks out like a sore thumb. Director "Clyde Anderson" (Claudio Fragasso) is big on the uncomfortably close close-ups in this, and the scenes go on forever! The soundtrack is off the rails. Wacky twist. If you're a fan of bad cinema, Night Killer is a goldmine.

Extras: Make sure to check out the interviews on the Severin edition, particularly the one with the director. He is a real freaking windbag, but also fairly insightful! He is incessantly name-dropping great directors when describing his own work, and actually refers to himself as an "underappreciated auteur." Make what you will of that. Interesting to learn that the movie husband and wife did not like each other. It really comes through in some scenes, where I'm assuming it's not supposed to.

This obscure Italian horror (my copy has Portuguese subtitles embedded!) has an appalling start with a group of late eighties dancers jerking about to just as appalling music, whilst the slasher style violence and nudity commences. It recovers, however, despite the low budget and average acting and whilst it becomes rather confusing, we never loose interest and in the end the film wins out. Much is mundane and predictable but the central performance is very good and there are impressive scenes including a sexy take on Red Riding Hood and a most enthusiastic, tying to the bed, sequence. As I say from the beginning you will wonder if this is worth sticking with but gladly it is and there are some decent twists along with the occasional hysterics.