Spasmo

Spasmo
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Produced by Ugo Tucci
Written by Félix Tusell
Pino Boller
Massimo Franciosa
Luisa Montagnana
Umberto Lenzi
Starring Suzy Kendall
Music by Ennio Morricone
Cinematography Antonio Millán
Edited by Eugenio Alabiso
Release dates
  • 1974 (1974)
Country Italy
Language Italian

Spasmo is a 1974 Italian horror giallo film directed by Umberto Lenzi.[1][2][3]

Plot Summary

A young couple on their nightly hormonal romp decide to go to the beach, where they first meet a mysterious man who is also parked there. After asking for a light, the couple make their way to some nearby ruins, where in the midst of their passion they discover a hanging woman. Upon investigation, it's revealed its a brutalized mannequin, the mysterious man peels off in his car before he can be questioned.

Enter couple number two, Christian and girlfriend number 1, who also decide the beach is a good place for a little afternoon delight. They too come upon a woman's body, this time face down, just above the surf. However, upon investigating this one, it turns out she is a real person, who is in fact not dead. Introducing herself as Barbara and not really explaining how she got there, she quickly disappears as Christian is distracted. Despite seemingly being involved with the girl he's there with, Christian can't seem to get Barbara out of his mind. He finds a flask with the word, "Tiancin" on it, ever the resourceful one, he tracks it to a boat with the same name, harbored in a local marina. He and his soon to be ex-girlfriend join a party aboard the boat and meet Barbara and her current lover Torres.

After pissing off Torres by swooping in on his girl and abandoning his own girl, Christian leaves with Barbara and they wind up back at her motel after a drive through a wooded area where we see even more mannequins hanging, this time adorned in lingerie. Some backstory is revealed in which Christian relates of a terrible incident with his father when he was younger and Barbara says that Torres is not her boyfriend but more of a provider. After some flirtation, Barbara makes an odd request before Christian can close the deal, he must shave his beard. Ever the ladies man, Christian willingly, but slowly complies while Barbara does the usual womanly pre-sexual rituals. As Christian takes his sweet time shaving in the bathroom, he hears a noise outside, as he pokes his head out the open window, he's assaulted by a man with a gun. After being downed, the man(Tatum), enters the bathroom, and proceeds to threaten Christian. Not one to take that lying down, Christian gets up and a brief struggle ensues wherein Tatum is shot and killed. Understandably freaked out, Christian leaves the bathroom and tells Barbara everything. Strangely at ease with the concept of a dead man in her room, she convinces Christian the best thing to do is run. So the two of them do exactly that and wind up going to a friends place, an awesome seaside castle/lighthouse.

After some back and forth where Christian insists that his brother Fritz can help and Barbara insisting that no one can, they are interrupted by Malcolm and Clorinda, a couple of apparent squatters in the place. Some more back and forth where Malcolm decides to be an ass and screw with Christian telling him of a murder he's heard about, whereupon Christian admits that he's the killer, Malcolm does the 70's equivalent of, "Naw, just fucking with you. There was no murder." Understandably confused, Christian retires for the night, after a snafu with Barbara, Clorinda shows up and proceeds to muddy the waters telling Christian that he knows her, after what may be a hallucinatory rape scene, he goes downstairs to see Barbara. The next day comes and Barbara is gone, Christian seeks her out by going to the motel room, where there is no body nor weapon, to the marina where there is no boat and he's followed by an ominous man and ultimately back to the tower where he sees Malcolm talking to that same man. Increasingly going out of his mind and unsure whether what he sees is real or not and unable to find his one anchor, Barbara, he passes the day away at the tower. Upon nightfall, he rouses and sees or thinks he sees Tatum on the grounds. Making his way down, he discovers Malcolm dead, as he leaves in a panic, we get a brief glimpse of an arm at the bottom of the well. He goes to the only place he thinks safe, the original girlfriend's apartment. After spending the night there, he's accosted by Tatum, who is very much alive. Tatum forces him to drive to a quarry, revealing along the way that the plan wasn't supposed to involve killing him, just driving him crazy, but since he's being stubborn about it, he has to die. Attempting to make it look like an accident, Tatum has him drive to the edge of the cliff and exits the car, quickly turning the tables on Tatum, Christian reverses the car, smacking Tatum with the open door and then proceeds to run him over in an awesomely gruesome scene. And because once is not enough, he runs over him a second time for good measure. Smartly realizing that there is a conspiracy against him, he switches clothes with Tatum and follows through with pushing the car off the cliff, only with Tatum's body in it instead of his. Hoping that by placing his necklace on Tatum, it will convince whomever is trying to kill him that the body is his own. Shortly after the explosion of the car, another car approaches, out come Barbara and Luca, making sure that "Christian" is dead. As they leave, Christian follows them back to his family's factory, currently being run by his brother Fritz. Its revealed that Tatum was right, the plan is to drive Christian mad so that he has no claim on the family fortune. Barbara, reveals that she has fallen for him and is sick of both Luca and Fritz because Christian wasn't supposed to die. The two men are satisfied though and tell her to shut up and go along with it.

A brief interlude in which Christian is wandering the roads, we get to see some Italian prostitutes and he gets picked up by a female John, Jane? After a short exchange, our boy freaks out and makes it weird as only he can do.

After leaving the factory, Luca and Barbara are planning their getaway which is interrupted by Christian. He tells her he knows and she admits to everything, the two reconcile and make plans to escape. Unfortunately, it would seem Christian really is a nutjob. As the two lovingly make up, he begins to see Clorinda's face, the ex-girlfriend's face and the random woman who picked him up. As he cannot take it, he chokes Barbara to death and runs away. Fritz meanwhile has investigated the car crash and figures out that its not Christian's body in the wreckage. Retreating to his mansion, he decides to indulge in some old family movies. As he's watching them, its revealed that Christian was a bit of a nutter as a kid as well and we see the beginning of what would be Christian's problems. A voiceover tells us that the fathers lunacy is hereditary, Christian with his perfect timing walks in at this moment. As he hears that, he begins to have flashbacks, its revealed that Clorinda was the nurse at the nuthouse and that Malcolm was the doctor. Additionally, its shown that he has killed Clorinda after the potential rape and dumped her in the well, that he killed the ex-girlfriend, the random woman in the car and of course Barbara. Fritz shoots him, fatally wounding him, but Christian manages to run away. As he bleeds out, Christian makes his way back to the beach where he originally found Barbara and dies.

Fritz, wanders his home, making his way to a closet, wherein its shown that he has dozens of mannequins, all clad in an assortment of lingerie, all with puncture marks and other disfigurements. As he slowly makes his way to a particular mannequin, we hear the voiceover again telling us that the insanity is hereditary as he repeatedly stabs the mannequin, releasing his pent up rage and craziness.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ Roberto Chiti, Roberto Poppi, Enrico Lancia. Dizionario del cinema italiano: I film. Gremese, 1991. ISBN 8876059695.
  2. ↑ Paolo Mereghetti. Il Mereghetti. B.C. Dalai Editore, 2010. ISBN 8860736269.
  3. ↑ Giancarlo Grossini. Dizionario del cinema giallo. Dedalo, 1985. ISBN 8822045106.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, December 23, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.