AN INTERVIEW WITH LUIGI COZZI

20.07.2007

One of the most versatile directors of science-fiction operating in Italy in the 1980s, Luigi Cozzi is a sensation among cult fans. His projects, ranging from Sinbad and Hercules to the ultra-violent video-nasty Contamination and mini sci-fi epic Starcrash have garnered worldwide acclaim. Cozzi's extensive collaborations with Dario Argento have also been notable, and he co-wrote 4 Flies on Grey Velvet and worked as a second-unit director for Two Evil Eyes and other Argento vehicles. His films have now found a new audience, with DVD distributers such as Mondo Macabro and Blue Underground bringing Cozzi's films to the mainstream. Now running Argento's Rome-based horror shop 'Profondo Rosso', Luigi Cozzi speaks to MJ Reviews about his extensive and colourful career in film.

Your first film was the little-known Tunnel Under The World, which you directed in 1969. How did you get into the film business?

I was a science fiction fan and by the age of 16 I did publish my first sci-fi story on a professional magazine. Then I moved to movies, first learning in the advertising industry and then moving from Milano (my own town, 400 miles north of Rome) to Rome, where i worked as a pop music journalist while starting to enter the movie industry till I finally made it thanks to my meeting with Dario Argento.

You directed the giallo The Killer Must Kill Again in 1975 and it was considered one of the best films of its type. What made you direct it?

Dario Argento produced in his own TV series Door Into Darkness, a one-hour movie which I wrote and directed, titled Neighbour. It made a sensation when aired and so I practically repeated his construction to do The Killer Must Kill Again, which a sort of feature-length remake of it. I wanted to show that it was possible to do a good giallo showing from the first shot who the killer was.

You directed the science-fiction film Starcrash, which was originally meant to be something quite different. What was your original vision for the picture?

My original vision for Starcrash is similar to the one put to the screen. I only had to change a few scenes, because of problems with the effects. But I'm very happy about this movie, it is as I wanted it to be, a kind of wild cartoon Barbarella spin-off, with a lotta of humour in it.

In 1980, you directed the horror/science fiction film Contamination. The film is considered among your best efforts but it was quickly branded an Alien imitation. Personally, I think it is one of the best Italian science-fiction films ever, and there was a blend of the police/detective thriller, the spy film and even a gangster drama. Where did you get your inspiration for the film?

I love the sci-fi movie classics from the fifties and Contamination takes the title and the egg idea from Alien, yes, but all of the rest comes from Enemy From Space, Them and other fifties classics.

Supposedly, you weren’t too pleased with the finished product of Contamination. Is this true?

No, I liked Contamination. I just said it is not exactly the kind of sci-fi which I like best... I prefer the kind of sci-fi which Starcrash is...but in any case even the realistic sci-fi of Contamination is okay. But I prefer the wild fantasy sci-fi to the realistic on, this is a fact.

You directed two Hercules films in 1983 and 1985, which was a drastic change from the gory horror of Contamination. Why did you turn to this genre of film?

Hercules One and Two are wild fantasy, which is the genre I do love (like Starcrash): science fantasy, that is. So I was very happy to do them and I still consider Hercules Two quite an avant-garde experimental movie, totally based on special visual effects.

Your final film as director was The Black Cat in 1989. How did this come about?

The Black Cat is not my best movie but an interesting one, sci-fi masked as a horror vehicle. Kind of futuristic Carrie.

You worked as a second-unit director for a number of films with Dario Argento, including Two Evil Eyes and The Stendhal Syndrome, as well as co-writing 4 Flies on Grey Velvet in 1971. You also opened a shop with Argento in Rome, Profondo Rosso. How come you forged such a close working relationship with Argento?

When I met Argento for a journalistic interview, we became soon friends and he did invite me to write his new movie, then he did invite me to work as an assistant director for him and I obviously was very happy to say 'Yes!'

Many of your films have developed a cult following, with new distributors making them widely available across the world. How have you responded to this?

I'm very happy that my movies are kinda cult. I wanted them to be exactly like this when I made them, I wanted my own little space in the realm of world sci-fi movie directors...and I think I got it!

What is your favourite Luigi Cozzi film and why?

My favorite movie is Dedicato a Una Stella, which means ‘Dedicated to a Star’, and was made just before Starcrash, becoming number one in the charts here in Italy and in Japan, where it was released with the title of The Last Concert: It stars Richard Johnson (The Haunting) and it is a kind of desperate love story about a musician who's lost his talent. I loved doing this movie because it was very easy to do and I could do a lot of camera work, which I couldn't do with my sci-fi movies because of the effects which at that time needed fixed camera work. In any case aside from Dedicated to a Star, I love Starcrash and then The Killer and the Hercules movies and Contamination.

And finally, do you have any other projects in the future that we can look forward to?

There's no more 'B' grade production here in Italy, so there's no possibility for more work of this type. Therefore I have no projects for the moment. I've just finished to direct a documentary of the work of Dario Argento and am taking care of the ‘Profondo Rosso’ horror shop here in Rome and of its horror Museum.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBBIE BRYAN

12.07.07

With horror gradually being dominated by the PG-13 remake and the highly commercialised franchises, independent films have become a breath of fresh air for the horror fan. MJ Reviews was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to interview Robbie Bryan, who will be directing the indie horror flick iMurders.

Firstly, tell us a little bit about iMurders. It’s looking to be one of the most exciting independent films of the year.

iMurders is an Agatha Christie-esque Murder Mystery with a good does of horror. It surrounds eight people in a Myspace-like chat room, who are playing a "game" which requires "eliminations" but in reality, people are being murdered in their own homes, which begs the question in Cyberspace, "do you really know who you're talking to?" It also deals with haunting and loneliness that only allows one to feel comfortable in front of a computer screen.

When will you be starting principal photography?

The plan is to begin right after Labor Day. We were waiting on Linda Hamilton, who we are thrilled to have in out cast, to finish another gig. When do you aim to be completed? Well, it's a 24 day shoot, and then we'll be editing and sound mixing for about 3 months, so hopefully, we'll be done in time to get it ready for Slamdance in January.

What kind of release are you aiming for iMurders?

Certainly a limited theatrical, and then the usual course of DVD, PPV and Foreign.

Your production company, Good to Be Seen Films, has been involved in a number of productions over the past decade. What made you shift to actually directing films?

I think I have kind of evolved from an actor, into a story teller, and though I wrote The Stand-In, I didn't direct it, and to be honest, if you're going to make films in more modest budget levels and write them, you really don't want someone elses vision of what you have created and envisioned ending up on screen. Because they are modest budgets, you don't have a studio dictating who gets to helm them.

What films did you draw inspiration from when creating iMurders?

Well, this film certainly has again, a sort of Cyber 10 Little Indians Feel, and I wanted the death scenes to have a bit of a Seven vibe, so the audience can envision in their minds what kind of pain and torture these souls went through, but still be jolted by the visual images they are seeing on screen. A slight variation from the "Torture Porn" genre. There aren't many deaths, but the few will be pretty intense.

Finally, horror has, at least in my opinion, become a genre dominated by cash for studios – horror fans end up out in the cold. What’s your view on this?

To an extent, I certainly agree and this is how. It's sort of the Clerks, Brothers McMullen Syndrome (yes, I know different genres), even Saw applies, where creative movies are made, low budget and done well, and make a surprising wad of cash, so the studios step in, seeing a "cash cow", throw BIG money into sequels and retreads thinking, sadly narrowmindidly, that that's all audiences want to see, but start putting the much higher budgeted films into formulas that some accountant has surmised must be included into the film to now make enough money to justify the higher budget, and the creative nuances get lost. But hey, people need to make a buck too, I just wish the "suits" (credit to "Billy" from Entourage) would allow creative people to do there thing. On the other hand, having invested my own money in projects, it's nice to see a return.

We’re looking forward to iMurders immensely. Thank you very much for this interview, and we hope to hear more from you.

Enjoyed it guys, thanks!

Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis & Donald Pleasance
89 mins; R18+; Colour

Previewed Release: R4 Force Video
Tagline: The night he came home!
Country of Origin: USA

The Film:

Well, no self-respecting horror review site would be complete without a review of one of the most seminal horror films of all time, John Carpenter’s outrageously successful tour-de-force Halloween. The thing is, with all the hype, one can’t help but feel the whole thing is but a little overrated.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Halloween introduces one of horror cinema’s most enduring nemeses – the evil Michael Myers, a deeply disturbed psychopath who, armed with blank white mask and long steak knife, vows to slaughter every member of his family on Halloween Eve. We open on Michael, in his mask, brutally killing his big sister and the reveal at the end of this scene is fantastic: we find out that the killer is no more than seven or eight years of age, dressed in pyjamas and wielding a bloodied knife. Fast-forward fifteen years: Michael is safely incarcerated in a mental hospital and the sleepy town of Haddonfield, Illinois has rested easy. Until, as the tagline so deftly exhibits, now. Escaping from the hospital, Michael is armed and dangerous and the only one able to stop him is his doctor, the all-knowing Sam Loomis (Pleasance). With the assistance of a babysitter played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Loomis must race against time to save Michael’s next potential victims.

The Release:

Force have, going against their usual maxim, released a decent disc. A twenty-eight minute documentary is the best of the special features, and the single disc is padded out with trailers, TV and radio spots, cast and crew biographies, a still gallery and some pages of trivia. Nice animated menu screens and a generally excellent audio/visual transfer is the icing on the cake. Unfortunately, the fact that the DVD sleeve looks terrible and the Force logo, usually synonymous with releasing shithouse discs of excellent films, may lead some astray. However, seeing as this can be found for quite cheap, buy with confidence.

The Bottom Line:

There is no doubt that Halloween is one of the most influential horror films ever made. Not only was it, up until a few years ago, the most profitable independent picture ever, but it ignited the Americanised teen slasher subgenre, paving the way for films such as Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer and, to a lesser extent, A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film itself spawned seven sequels and a remake helmed by Rob Zombie of House of 1000 Corpses fame is slated for cinema release in August 2007. However, Halloween has a number of fundamental flaws. For one, the film is poorly pace – aside from the nasty but brief prologue, it takes Myers a little under an hour to claim his first victim. Too…fucking…long. However, credit where credit’s due: Carpenter did an exceptional job directing his third feature, Pleasance and Curtis’ acting is reasonably good and the music, also by Carpenter, is superb. A good film, and a wildly original one to be sure, but its relentless pumping by horror fans makes this an overrated picture.

City of the Living Dead (1980)
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Starring Christopher George & Catriona MacColl
90 mins; 18; Colour

Previewed Release: R2 Vipco Screamtime Collection
Tagline: Films that terrified audiences around the world!
Country of Origin: Italy

The Film:

One of my favourite exploitation directors of all time, Lucio Fulci is notorious for his ultra-violent set pieces in his films. The eyeball scene of Zombie, the nipple-slice of New York Ripper and the throat-ripping of House by the Cemetery rank as some of horror cinema’s most harrowing scenes. Because, with Fulci, you don’t know how far he will go: in the films of today, sly editing and framing makes you think you’re seeing something that is, in actual fact, entirely off screen. But Fulci goes hell for leather in all of his films and City of the Living Dead generates one of Fulci’s finest set-pieces – a young man, a jealous father and a very large drill bit. But this is only the beginning: Fulci then treats us to a woman vomiting her own intestines, a man being ripped apart and brains being single-handedly torn out of skulls. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is horror!

There isn’t much to City plot wise and in this respect, it is very similar to the third film in Fulci’s zombie quadrilogy The Beyond. A book, containing a chant, is used and opens one of the gates of hell, out of which the dead rise to eat the flesh of the living. That’s it. Thankfully, the grue begins early on, with the zombies getting down to their flesh-eating ways when the running time is still in single digits. How much you enjoy City entirely depends on your appreciation of exquisite trash – this is no masterpiece, but it is nevertheless a minor exploitation classic.

The Release:

Vipco is the British Umbrella, or Blue Underground. In other words, they release cult horror and exploitation films with gusto. However, they’re the inferior ones of the mob. Generally, audio/visuals are poor and the extras are paltry. However, its nice to see that Vipco have done well by this disc. There’s a commentary by MacColl, trailers, a photo gallery and filmographies. The film is also presented with good audio/visual transfer, if there a few detracting film artefacts. R4 have been given a bare-bones release of City by Siren Visual. The best bet for fans, however, is the US Blue Underground disc.

The Bottom Line:

Graphically violent and complete with the trademark poor acting and OTT directorial flourishes, City of the Living Dead is everything you’d ever want when you sit down for a slice of pure Italian cheese. Plus, it's hilarious to see Giovanni Lombardo Radice be drilled through the skull. Highly recommended.

Running Scared (2005)
Directed by Wayne Kramer
Starring Paul Walker, Vera Farmiga, Cameron Bright
117 mins; MA15+; Colour

Previewed Release: R4 Roadshow
Tagline: Every bullet leaves a trail.
Country of Origin: USA

The Film:

Wayne Kramer, director of the sub-par casino film The Cooler, always had potential. While very flawed, The Cooler’s highlight was Kramer’s direction and it didn’t extend the fledgeling director nearly enough. He showed promise and, provided the right material would come along, he would be a formidable force in American cinema. Running Scared is that material. It would be easy to dismiss this on face value as dumb action fare, the cinematic equivalent of junk food. But in reality, Running Scared is one of the most hard-hitting films to grace Hollywood in a long time.

Beginning with an outrageously over-the-top shoot out between the Mob and a group of narcotic cops, two-bit Mafia soldier Joey Gazelle (Walker) is given one of the offending weapons to destroy. However, he doesn’t get rid of it right away, instead stashing it in his basement where it is found by Joey’s son and Oleg, the pre-pubescent child of Joey’s psychotic Russian next door neighbours. Oleg takes the gun and shoots his father in the shoulder, before running off. With the Italian and Russian Mob and a corrupt detective trailing him, Joey must race against time to both claim the gun and return Oleg in one piece before he is killed.

The Release:

By no means a special release (and, if the film becomes as successful as it should on DVD, then expect one) but meaty nonetheless. Feature commentary by Kramer, an eighteen minute making of, storyboards and a trailer should keep you occupied for a while. Excellent audio/visual transfer, with two Dolby English soundtracks in both 2.0 and 5.1, and presented in the original aspect ratio of 2:35:1.

The Bottom Line:

Running Scared is, quite simply, the best American action-thriller film since Scorsese’s The Departed. The frenetic pace, edgy direction, artificially coloured film stock and brilliant acting by Walker and Farmiga as Joey’s wife Teresa makes this an excellent example of how action cinema should be made. Chazz Palminteri also puts in a fantastic supporting turn as a corrupt cop, and the force in which he plays his role adds an entirely new dimension to the already-tense proceedings. This is a vastly different movie to The Cooler, or even the dumb action flicks Walker has been attached to in the past – writer/director Kramer has crafted an immensely disturbing film, most of all when Teresa discovers Oleg has been kidnapped by a duo of demented paedophiles. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly innocuous action film Running Scared promotes itself as – this is heavy going stuff from the opening frames to the end credits. Highly recommended.

Torso (1973)
Directed by Sergio Martino
Starring Suzy Kendall
90 mins; Not Rated; Colour

Previewed Release: R2 NSM Records
Tagline: One Day She Met a Man Who Loved Beautiful Women...But Not All in One Piece Country of Origin: Italy

The Film:

In the sixties and seventies, Italian horror cinema was dominated by the giallo. Taking its name from the colour of pulp fiction paperbacks (giallo is Italian for yellow), gialli were distinguished by their labyrinthine plot twists, uber-stylish direction and camera angles and, in some cases, short, sharp and extreme bouts of bloody violence. Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and the legendary Dario Argento were masters of the giallo, helming internationally popular thrillers such as Deep Red, Don’t Torture A Duckling and Twitch of the Death Nerve. When Italian cinema became dominated by the zombie and cannibal cycles of the late seventies and early eighties, the giallo became a relic of a bygone era, and only occasionally would these films be greenlit. One of these latecomers was Sergio Martino’s Torso (sleazily retitled Carnal Violence for the Western market), which became incidentally one of the most famous and respected films of this subgenre.

Torso introduces us to a sadistic killer, whose identity is unknown, as he stalks and kills female victims of a college. His methods are particularly brutal – after strangling them with a distinctive red and black patterned scarf, he hacks them up and may or may not have sex with them in the process. It’s up to a group of young college girls (one of whom is played by Kendall) and a police detective to uncover the mystery, and save more women from the killer (or killers) clutches.

The Release:

Excellent audio/visual quality, and one of the few versions that restores the film to its proper Italian theatrical version, complete with intact opening credits and death scenes. Therefore, some scenes are in Italian (with German subtitles, as this is a German disc) however these scenes don’t amount to more than a few minutes. The extras are okay, nothing special: an art gallery, trailers, US opening and closing credits (which snips a few frames of sex and shows the original title as Carnal Violence) and TV spots. This release, one of the best in the audio/visual department, is unfortunately out-of-print. An identical one has been released by Another World Entertainment under the header ‘Giallo Collection’ (pictured top left). Siren have released a heavily cut version for R4 under the title Carnal Violence, which should be avoided at all costs.

The Bottom Line:

Martino, like many Italian horror maestros, was a complete rip-off merchant, latching onto popular cinema trends and capitalising. His cannibal film Mountain of the Cannibal God and monster flick The Great Alligator is testament to this. However, unlike his plagiarising peers, Martino had an enormous amount of talent, and both Alligator and Mountain became among the most respected films of their respective subgenres. Torso is no different. Its blend of sleaze, bloody violence and red herrings makes this enjoyable for any horror fan, and the fact that Martino has style in spades also makes it one of the best gialli ever filmed.

The Sopranos Season Three (2001)
Created by David Chase
Starring James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco
754 mins; MA15+; Colour

Previewed Release: R4 Warner Bros
Tagline: Some suburban households have two cars. Some have two houses. But Tony Soprano has two families.
Country of Origin: USA

The Show:

***For a basic Sopranos synopsis, please refer to our review of Season 1.

SPOILERS HEREIN

I’m a very, very big Sopranos fan. So big, in fact, that I firmly believe watching Tony and his two ‘families’ for just under an hour is eons more wholesome than ninety-five percent of feature films released. As I have said in past reviews, the acting is spectacular, the direction taut and the writing sensational. And, like all television shows, The Sopranos has made a natural progression – season 3 is bigger, better and showcases these good points far better than its two predecessors.

The number of sheer bombshells dropped in Season 3 are fantastic. In the season debut episode Mr Ruggiero’s Neigbourhood, we follow the FBI as they desperately try to bug Tony’s house. By the second episode (Proshai Livushka), Tony’s mortally sick mother dies, an event which almost sparks a war between the New Jersey Mob and the Russian Mafia, not least because of Tony’s meddling sister Janice. Christopher (Michael Imperioli, typically fantastic) is promoted in episode 3 (Fortunate Son), and discovers made life is not all is cranked up to be. And this is merely the first quarter of the season.

There are some notable newcomers introduced in Season 3, both in the cast and crew. Joe Pantoliano (best known as the manic lieutenant of Bad Boys and its sequel) stars as the psychotic mobster Ralphie, who manages to dangerously cross his superiors at every turn. Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski) directs Pine Barrens (episode 11) and has a significant supporting role in front of the camera in Season 5.

The Release:

Slightly better than the first and second seasons, but still paltry. The sum total are two featurettes (that, exploiting their –ette suffix, run for three minutes apiece) and, most notably, commentaries for three episodes, particularly by Buscemi for Pine Barrens.

The Bottom Line:

Still the best show on television, Season 3 of the seminal hit series amps everything up – the sleaze factor, the violence, the profanity and, most of all, the tension and clash between and among Tony’s Mob family and biological family. Being a highly chronological series though, you’d be best starting off at Season 1, though this instalment contains some of the best episodes thus far and, indeed, some of the biggest bombshells. This is where things get really crazy and, for the Sopranos, that’s saying a lot. Highly recommended.