Obsession: A Taste for Fear

Obsession: a Taste for Fear

"Are knives standard in the bondage game?"

Diane (Virginia Hay) is a high-powered high-tech bisexual photographer who gets what she wants in the bedroom as well as in the studio. But when her model and lover, Tegan (Tegan Morrison) turns up dead, she has to stay a step ahead of Lieutenant Arnold (Dario Parisini) to protect her ex-husband, Georges (Gérard Darmon), who is the main suspect.  Soon, other people close to Diane are killed in the same way - bound in ropes and then stabbed, like a kinky encounter gone wrong. Can Diane find the real killer before Lieutenant Arnold closes in on Georges? And who will be the next to die in this wicked game of cat and mouse?

Obsession: a Taste for Fear definitely falls under the category of "sexy" giallo, with more gratuitous nudity and steamy scenes that any two other gialli combined. This movie is writer/director Piccio Raffianini's only credit - he never made another film before or since - but he seems to know his stuff, turning in a script with all the rhythms of a classic giallo and camera work throughout that pays homage to Dario Argento's Susperia, flooding each frame with deeply saturated color.

• You may know Australian actress Virginia Hay from her role in The Road Warrior, as a Bond girl in The Living Daylights, or as sexy blue alien Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan on TV's Farscape.
• The original Italian title, Pathos: Segreta Inquietudine translates roughly as Passion: Secret Anxiety. It's also sometimes called Pathos: Un Sapore di Paura, which literally translates as A Taste for Fear.
• The score by Gabrielle Ducros is a glorious late-80's fever dream of 808 beats, synthesized new-age panflutes and Lethal Weapon-style sax solos.
• There's a sly little homage to Michaelangelo Antonioni's1966 film Blow-Up, which was a touchstone for Argento's early films. Just like David Hemming's character in the mod classic, Diane gets frustrated during a photo shoot and tells her models to close their eyes and hold their poses, as she walks out of the building with no plans to return.

What the Hell am I Watching?

Near the very beginning of the movie, Georges takes Diane to a nightclub right out of a Stefon sketch from Saturday Night Live. This club has everything: little people ballroom dancers, a female bodybuilder, mirrors covered with cocaine, and a live band that plays New Jack Swing covers of George Gershwin songs.

Twice during the movie, scene transitions are made with a star-wipe, the cheapest and stupidest looking edit ever devised and one that has no place in a professionally-made film.

During the investigation, Lt. Arnold gets out of his car and is nearly run over by a speeding van. He draws his gun and fires what appears to be a laser blast. Where did that come from? Police have laser guns now? Are we in the future?

The movie never makes it clear what kind of photographer Diane is, exactly. She's not a fashion photographer, because her models almost never wear clothes. I suppose what she does could be considered high-end artistic erotica, but for what market? Calendars? Framed art prints?

Fashion Moment

When the characters do eventually get dressed, it's not often in something notable - or visible with all the high-contrast lighting effects.  But there seems to be a motif throughout the movie of crazy fashion eyewear. Here's Tegan, sporting some retro checkered shades.

Kim wears these strange sunglasses with matte lenses

Diane keeps it classic with black Ray Bans

And here's Georges in his Dwayne Wayne flip-ups (which he wears like an eye patch at one point).

Let's also have a look at the beautiful cinematography. It's a lot darker than Argento's use of color, but has the same disorienting, ultra-saturated effect.

 

 

The Murder Clinic

The Murder Clinic

I never look at houses. Only the people living in them.

It's 1870 and at a remote English estate converted into a psychiatric asylum, a beautiful young patient has been murdered by a mysterious figure in a black hooded cloak. That same night, Giseéle (Françoise Prévost) is lost in the woods and stumbles upon the clinic's doctor, Robert Vance, burying the body. The next morning, Dr. Vance discovers Giséle and takes her in as a guest, where she meets the doctor's wife, Lizabeth (Mary Young), Nurse Mary (Barbara Wilson) and several patients at the hospital. Did Dr. Vance really kill the young woman? Or did one of the inmates finally snap? What are those strange footsteps coming from the forbidden third floor? And who will be the next to die?

The Murder Clinic (not to be confused with Slaughter Hotel, which has virtually the same plot) is an early giallo that relies on the trappings of gothic horror to create its mood: a dark castle, torch-weilding villagers and a quite-possibly-mad scientist. But The Murder Clinic also clearly owes a lot to the gialli of Mario Bava, whose trademark colored lighting is appropriated along with certain plot elements from Blood and Black Lace. There are also elements that presage an important later work but I'll go into detail below.

• Elio Scardamaglia was mainly a producer of Italian exploitation films. This is the only movie he ever directed.
• Barbara Wilson seems like a natural on-screen, but this is her only film credit.
• You may remember Massimo Reghi (who plays psychotic patient Fred) as Marco in Blood and Black Lace.
• The Murder Clinic is an early script by superstar screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi.
• A shallow grave in the woods does not count as a scene in a cemetery, for the purposes of the checklist above.

What the Hell am I Watching?

 When Dr. Vance finds Giséle in the woods, he gives her a quick medical exam. And by "gives her a medical exam" I mean "gropes her bewbs."

There's a flashback late in the movie scored to a knockoff of the main theme from Gone With the Wind. I'm sure it's just different enough to avoid litigation.

Fashion Moment

Scardamaglia attempts a color motif in The Murder Clinic, just like Bava did in Blood and Black Lace. In this case, the color red links back to the first murder. At the beginning of the film, the killer runs through the castle and seemingly into the Vance's suite, where Robert is wearing this red smoking jacket.

The next morning, the victim has mysteriously vanished and Nurse Mary finds her red book slashed across the cover.

Wearing a fancy red dress, Giséle stumbles across Dr. Vance burying the body and when he finds her, Dr. Vance is wearing a red cape.

Later, when Giséle tries to blackmail Dr. Vance, he is wearing the same red smoking jacket.

On a different note, it may sound strange but The Murder Clinic may have been an influence on one of the greatest giallo films of all time - Dario Argento's Susperia.  The first murder in both films features a young woman escaping a looming manor house and running from a killer through the woods at night.  There's a scene in The Murder Clinic where Giséle slowly explores the house, gets chased by the killer, locks herself in a room, watches in terror as the door handle rattles, and is attacked - rather like Sara's memorable scene in Susperia. Both movies feature a mysterious woman hidden at the top of the house, who holds the answers to all the weird goings-on. And there's this scene, where a servant chases the killer through a shadowy labyrinth of hanging laundry...

... which is reminiscent of this memorably creepy scene from Susperia:

So was Dario Argento inspired by elements of The Murder Clinic? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Tenebrae

Tenebrae

"They love your books but they hate success."

American novelist Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) has arrived in Rome to promote his new crime thriller, "Tenebre" (the title translates as "Darkness"). Unfortunately, he is distressed to discover that someone has been killing women in the same manner as in his book. After each murder, Peter receives a cryptic note and a threatening phone call and as the killer gets closer, Peter must use his wits to unravel a mystery that has sprung from the pages of his own book. Could it be his agent, Bullmer (John Saxon)? The angry critic, Tilde (Mirella D'Angelo), or did his slightly unhinged ex, Jane (Veronica Lario) follow him to Rome?

After re-inventing the giallo with The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and then re-inventing it again with Susperia, Tenebre marks Dario Argento's return to classic giallo form, albeit with his own signature flourishes and unique visual style. I appreciate the touches of humor that Argento places judiciously throughout, like Bullmer's recurring vanity about his hat and ditzy Detective Altieri (Carola Stagnaro), who is this movie's Gracie Allen. I also love the fantastic score by electro-rock band Goblin.

• Lamberto Bava (son of giallo pioneer Mario Bava) was Assistant Director on this film.
• I feel like Dario Argento was responding to his critics by having a reviewer slam Peter's book for being sexist and violent towards women... and then brutally killing her off.
• I met John Saxon once at a horror movie convention. He's a really nice guy.
• Argento is often inspired by his own life, and Tenebre was reportedly conceived after an incident with a stalker.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Who drops his bag at an airport to walk 20 feet away for a phone call? Why would you do that? And for that matter, who rides his bike down the middle of the highway to the airport? Before a trans-continental flight? He must have stunk up the whole cabin.

I love how the police draw their guns and just wave them around indiscriminately while chasing a suspect. They're like kids playing cops and robbers.

Fashion Moment

Pastels were big in '82.

 

Also, Peter's rented house. Is. Amazing.