Inferno

infernoposterAs infuriating and dull as it is beautiful and beguiling, Inferno marked a rare early misstep for Il Maestro.  “Panini-ed” between the tremendous, visual decadence of Suspiria and Tenebre, this Argento effort comes up short, while feeling quite long.

A poet, Rose, finds a rare book in her oddball abode in New York City, a skyline rendered almost like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Her reading material is The Three Mothers, and was procured (conveniently) right next door at an antiques emporium, whose creepy, crippled proprietor looks like Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet.  The tome was penned by a mysterious architect who’s dabbled in alchemy, and whose day job involved building scary structures in three countries, including Rose’s dwelling (also, it should be said, in Germany, home to a certain ballet school of some renown in horror circles).

Rose follows a mysterious trail that leads her onto the city streets and into a cave-like apartment dwelling, part of which is submerged. When her broach/keys fall into an open hole, she descends into the watery depths, a lush visual tapestry courtesy of mentor Mario Bava, who did the Second Unit work when mentee Dario fell ill.

It’s a transcendent space/place, ethereal and not quite liquid, not quite air. It’s a fascinating other-world that Inferno creates and is as as richly pink and blue as a film can get, with only The Abyss, Planet of the Vampires and yes, Blue Velvet able to bi-chromatically compete.

inferno-1980This is lovely, scintillating stuff — that is, until Rose seeks epistolary input from her brother Mark in Italy. And it’s on Mark’s milquetoast shoulders that the mystery of The Three Mothers rests, and mamma mia is he underwhelming.

The mustachioed university student becomes involved in the evil step mother curse via Verdi, seeing a witch in the middle of classical music appreciation class. It’s a potentially interesting scene, music students all in their own headspace via headphones and the strains of Va, Pensiero from the opera, Nabucco. But it feels solecistic. After all, Mark’s only involved through cross-Atlantic correspondence, while Rose feels things weird things first-hand. It’s a real side-ways step that put a lot of viewers off.

Argento promises us a Rose garden, but ultimately she becomes an entirely fringe character in the weeds, taken over not only by Mark, but also by his classmate Sara and a shoe-horned in countess, Elise (played by then Argento love interest, Daria Nicolodi, mother of Asia).

The evil book curse manifestations make little sense, and seem like an excuse for the director to stuff a supernatural tale with giallo elements he’d become comfortable with (black glove).

Ultimately victims fall to plague-like curses, as Mark wanders from one phantasmagorical dreamworld to another piecing things together.

Best taken in small doses.

*** (out of 5)

[CHECK OUT OUR INFERNO PODCAST!]

Don’t Go Near the Park

Don’t be fooled by Don’t Go Near the Park. While it sounds like the other “don’t” films, don’cha know* (many of which we’ve covered here, including Don’t Go in the Woods, Don’t Answer the Phone!, Don’t Look in the Basement) it’s actually far from being a straight-ahead stalk ‘n’ slash. In fact, it’s far from being straight-ahead.

You see, Don’t Go Near the Park features immortal cannibal cave people, with a story so byzantine it makes Finnegans Wake look like Ten Little Indians.

Like its slasher brethren, DGNTP features an insane prologue. However, instead of merely going back a generation to explain how being forced to put on a dress turned Little Johnny into a wide-eyed campground Stabby McGee 15 years later, this film takes us back 12,000 years ago.

Picture it: humans lived by torchlight. In caves. Wearing loin-cloths. And they spoke English (who knew?)

We are introduced to cave-siblings, (Patty and Gar) who are somehow cursed to drink human blood in order to quell sped-up aging (ten years for every one). And in order to speed up the plot, the viewer is catapulted to the present, and then vaulted 16 years ahead after that.

Gar rents a room from a landlady (played by horror icon Linnea Quigley, best known for being antler bait in Silent Night, Deadly Night) in the time-honored fashion: walking in on her in the shower (!). Despite this breach of etiquette, he isn’t immediately sent packing in favor of another prospective tenant, but actually is allowed to rent the place (after which, they become a couple).

The 16-year narrative jump is for their teen daughter, the hilariously named Bondi (that’s “Bond-ee,” not like the beach, dear Aussie readers) who’s the apple of daddy’s eye. She’s ostensibly birthed so that Gar and his sister can feast on a virgin. Possibly. This requires a second and maybe a third viewing for further clarification, as the two seem to feast just fine on random people.

To plug the narrative gaps, there’s some exposition aplenty, provided by a somewhat confused local historian, Mr. Taft (the legendary Aldo Ray) who regales an orphan boy with tales of the “demons of Las Filas?” and who voices the film’s titular warning (odd, given there are two separate parks where Gar feasts on his victims, both of which don’t meet any definition of what most would consider a “park”).

With effects that wouldn’t pass muster at the HG Lewis School of Film-making, inappropriate nudity, head-scratching performances, and histrionic wailing like “You never gave me gold!” Don’t Go Near the Park is a bona-fide cult classic and a fascinating bit of gonzo cinema.

*** (out of 5)

[Listen to our podcast discussion of Don’t Go Near the Park]

[*Editor’s note: Many “Don’t” films were added to the Video Nasties list]