So were those crazy kids dead or what??! This film seems to have been largely swept under the rug and is an easy one to miss because of its various titles and probably how there are many similarly plotted flicks to it dotted throughout the 80s, including better ones made by Lamberto Bava. Even the story sounds fairly generic just to describe it, being about a group of young people on a road trip who, following a petty theft from a convenience store, find themselves in a rustic tavern where the highly suspicious owner makes a tempting wager that one of them can't spend a night in the underlying ancient catacombs which legend says are a portal to hell...sort of. It sure doesn't sound like anything special but I really took to it right away and I was very impressed and entertained by the strong atmosphere and set designs of the catacombs, which were unbelievably well done for the budget and were so enchantingly creepy and absorbing to look at that it made me wonder why the movie isn't a little more well known and regarded. It doesn't deserve the harsh reception it's got from most of the reviewers on here, the worst thing it's guilty of is a little horrendous acting, but I for one was quite entertained by all that hyper and over-the-top dubbed acting, and I never found this to be dull and boring, the main thing I took from it was that it was just a lot of macabre 80s kooky Italian dubbed fun, I thought it was a lot of totally harmless tongue in cheek cheese, and it had a good balance between being campy but also pretty eerie too. People have taken it so seriously without seeming to notice or care that the movie has a definite playfulness to itself that almost makes it feel like a Scooby Doo adventure at points, you do get that the characters are in danger, but it never feels like they're in that much danger! The scene that to me best demonstrates how much fun the director was having with it is the rather extravagantly grotesque sequence where a group on undead monster debutants are enjoying what by the looks of it is to them some fine dining, but scatter back into their coffins in terror when two wandering humans invade their sumptuous banquet of the damned! I've seen a lot of horror movies but wow! I really couldn't believe it when that spectacular scene popped up! Everyone bandies around the old "It's a TV movie" excuse like it automatically makes a movie so much worse. Horsepucky! To me the acting and visuals of this were about as effective as the next 80s Bava horror picture! I had myself a blast with it and I wasn't interested in putting it down for its production values or the quality of the acting, I found it to be a lot more enjoyable and entertaining than the majority of the newer horror flicks I've been watching lately. Again I wasn't sure if it was an actual location or not but I loved the ancient labyrinth of crypts that were the catacombs, they were magnificently gothic and the movie was rich in atmosphere because of them, they were the perfect creepy setting. All but one of the characters kept me very amused all the way through and I enjoyed the ride, it was like a tour through one of the best spookhouses in history!! I like it a lot but I would've loved it if it wasn't for the completely unnecessary confusion of the ending, which for me harmed the overall effect of the whole thing. The movie feels like it's building up to a very obvious twist which is heavily hinted at multiple times, but just never happens. They manage to escape from the catacombs and the obviously evil tavern guy pulls off his face and declares himself the Grim Reaper and advances on them, but is killed by a simple stabbing? And them it shows that the police have found their van crashed on the side of the road and not in a stream, but their dead bodies aren't in it, then as they emerge from the freaky pub with their hard-earned booty they're arrested...so they must be alive! Then why did the movie try so hard to make me think otherwise? I don't know if something was lost in translation to the English dub or what, but from where I'm looking that was just some seriously sloppy filmmaking and didn't make any damn sense! Bava should have just gone with the "they were dead the whole time" angle anyway! Some like the ending but for me that was just too big a plot-hole to ignore. Overall though I liked this movie, I think it's an excellent watch around Halloween, and for all its faults, this movie is a fine exercise in atmosphere and tension and is well worth watching for some chills as well as laughs. If you enjoy it as much as I did, then you'll find that it's a film that when you've seen it, you'll be wondering where it's been hiding and why you didn't watch it sooner. X
For me, some glaring inconsistencies towards the end mar what could have been something pretty great, but a fun spooky romp nonetheless!
16 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers