Cold Eyes of Fear (1971)

Cold Eyes of Fear aka Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura (1971)

The cover to the Black House release of Cold Eyes of Fear

Film: Sometimes, if you have an extensive movie collection, a movie may just seem to appear like some kind of Pokémon. Recently, I’ve been cleaning up my various collections of movies, records, comics, magazines etc and in the course of that have discovered a whole pile of movies that I had either forgotten I owned, or couldn’t remember how they became a part of my collection.

This film, Cold Eyes of Fear, is directed by Enzo G. Castellari, the man who gave us films like the original version of The Inglorious Bastards, and one of my favourite VHS to hire as a kid, 1990: The Bronx Warriors. This film was written by Castellari, along with Leo Anchóriz, and Tito Carpi.

Peter (Gianni Garko) makes a move on Anna (Giovanna Ralli)

Cold Eyes of Fear tells of solicitor Peter Bedell (Gianni Garko) who leans quite heavily into the sleazier parts of town, much to his uncle’s (Fernando Rey), who is a judge, despair. On the night we start our tale, Peter meets a young woman, Anna (Giovanna Ralli) at a Grand Guignol club and takes her home.

Unfortunately for the couple, when they get back to Peter’s house, they find themselves held prisoner by Quill (Julián Mateos), a crook who has invaded their house in a hope to score some money from a safe he has been assured is in the house by an accomplice.

There is some back and forth going on until the accomplice, Arthur Welt (Frank Wolff) turns up and all of the sudden the game gets more involved as we find that perhaps Welt’s motivation is greater than money…

Welt (Frank Wolff) considers making a move on Peter… a violent move!

I was quite surprised by this film. The opening scene is a classic bait-and-switch me is the sauciest the film gets. The main part of the film, the home invasion, is overlong, but is just intriguing enough that it kept me watching.

Interestingly it is an extraordinarily small script with minimal that without some of the fluff (like the aforementioned opening scene) I could almost believe that this is a stage play adapted to the screen, like something like The Bad Seed was. Thankfully, Castellari keeps the whole thing interesting with some claustrophobic filming and some over the top performances that somehow make the spaces even smaller.

One this that stood out for me, and this is going to seem strange, but Garko’s hair was almost a character unto itself. The more he was roughed up, the more bizarre the mop on top of his became. It’s quite a special thing.

The main criticism of the film is it just goes on for FAR to long. It honestly could have been a really tight story told in 45 minutes, but cinema cannot be that short. It does entertain for the most part though.

Score: ***

The menu screen of the Black House release

Extras: There is trailers for five Jean Rollin films on this disc, for Fascination, Lips of Blood, The Iron Rose, The Nude Vampire and The Shiver of the Vampire.

Score: **

WISIA: I can see myself watching this again, but not for a while.

Peter’s very serious uncle (Fernando Rey)

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)

One from the re watch pile…

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)

Film: As with all film fans, there are ‘Holy Grails’ on my mental checklist of ‘need to sees’ and before I had seen it, this was one of mine. This film, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, is also known as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (which is more or less a translation of the Italian title “Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti” which literally means “You must not desecrate the sleep of the dead”) and Don’t Open the Window. I had these three films on my list, and for some reason I was ignorant of the fact that they were one in the same film.

Imagine my joy when I found out they were one and the same.

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue tells the following tale: George (Ray Lovelock) is an antiques dealer who enjoys his weekends in the country, away from the hustle and bustle and pollution of the big city. One weekend on his way to his retreat, he has a small accident with the gorgeous Edna (Christine Galbo) who is on the way to assist her brother in law Martin (Jose Lifante) in an intervention with her heroin addicted sister, Katie (Jeannine Mestre). Unfortunately his motorbike is wrecked, and so Edna offers to take him to where he has to go in her car.

Typically they get lost, and George stops to ask for directions at a farm that is using a revolutionary pest control technique that has a disturbing side effect: it brings the dead back to life! Whilst George is away from the car, Edna is attacked by one of the living dead, and so begins a descent into madness that finds corpses returning to eat the living, babies showing deadly signs of cannibalism and the local constabulary, led by a hardnosed old-school inspector (Arthur Kennedy) thinking they are a pair of homicidal hippies!

One of the things I really like about this film is what a misogynistic, sexist arsehole the male lead, George (Ray Lovelock) appears to be. He is a condescending, self assured jerkoff, and honestly I can’t tell if he is representing men of the era accurately, or if he is a parody akin to what was seen in something like the MUCH later film The Editor.

Now the female lead is one I really like. Christine Galbo plays her role of Edna like a more realistic Barbara from Night of the Living Dead. She is definitely in shock, but almost completely avoids the dumb-founded catatonia that made Barbara a frustrating piece of furniture to be thrown around by the male protagonists.

Actually I felt this film owed a lot to Night of the Living Dead, and not just due to its walking dead, its machismo fuelled male lead or weak-ankled female lead. There is an all over sense of impending doom, and the more cynical of us might just say the ending is a blatant copy of Romero’s B/W film.

The script, by Sandro Continenza, is both retro and revolutionary at the same time. It has hippie-hating cops and the women are of the shrinking violet variety, but it also looks at ‘new’ clean pest-rid technologies. It’s anti-pollution, looks briefly (and amusingly) at heroin addiction and demonstrates a high level of environmental awareness.

An absolute cracker. It precedes George Romero’s ideas of the dead’s instincts presented in Dawn of the Dead by several years, and its anti-pollution, pro-eco stance is well ahead of its time. As for Blue Underground’s disc, well it is chock-a-block full of more extras than you could shake a grave marker at. I never thought I would see a film to rival Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, and while I still may not have, this comes real close

Score: *****

Format: This review was performed on the Blue Underground, two-disc Set from about ten years ago. The DVD has a delightful image: bright, vibrant, detailed, and is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen. The cover claims the image has been remastered in Hi Definition from the original camera negative, and I am guessing it is that process which gives it…ahem… new life. The film is presented in a choice of 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround, Dolby Surround 2.0 and Original Mono. I reviewed this as 5.1 and was impressed by the quality. Of course, the voices do not always match the speaker’s lips but this may be due to dual language tracks rather than a fault of the disc mastering.

Score: ***1/5

Extras: This being a 2 discer means we are treated to a coffin full of extras.

Disc 1 treats us to the International trailer (which identifies the film as The Living Dead at THE Manchester Morgue, but gets away with it by providing a COOL music track), the U.S. trailer (under the title of Don’t Open the Window, and is one of those SEE!!! HEAR!!! Type trailers), TV Spot (another US trailer for Don’t Open The Window), Radio Spots (a collection of radio adverts with a collection of posters played over the screen…excellent) and Poster and Still Gallery (a collection of pixelated pictures and posters and stills from the film).

Disc 2 has a great series of featurettes:

Back To the Morgue – On Location With Jorge Grau sees director Grau revisit locations in Derbyshire and Manchester and talk about the production, location and filming of the movie. The revisitation of Southgate hospital shows it to be a condemned building…shame but the visit to the graveyard is fantastic (especially to a grave yard explorer like me) as it is the graveyard that contains the grave of Robin Hood’s Lieutenant Little John!! The visits are accompanied by amusing reminiscences from Grau. A favourite would have to be his justification of having the streaker in the opening part of the film; while he admits it wasn’t in the script, he believed it was ‘suggested’ by the scriptwriter.

Zombie Fighter – Interview with Star Ray Lovelock is an interesting interview with the actor where he basically recounts his career.

Zombie Maker – Interview with Special Effects Artist Gianetto De Rossi is an interesting look not just at the effects of this film and the effect’s artist’s body of work, but also a brief history of effects artists in European cinema.

2000 Interview with Jorge Grau is a more personal interview with Grau, and he discusses his life and influences, and the making of the film.

Score: *****

WISIA: It’s an amazing zombie film and well worth repeated viewings!

Panic Beats (1982) Review

One from the re watch pile…
Panic Beats aka Latinos de Pánico (1982)


Film: I totally love Paul Naschy (aka Jacinta Molina), but it’s a strange love. I dig Naschy as I see myself in him! We both grew up loving horror films, and loving old heroes like Robin Hood and Zorro (a particular favourite of mine). His favourite monster is the werewolf, as is mine, and he is a not very attractive, hirsute, round-headed dude who has no trouble pulling chicks…

Ok, so we aren’t completely similar!

His films have always stood out for me, even though I have only seen a small percentage of them. It’s not just Naschy’s films though; I think I just love all the films of Spain from this period, as I love stuff from Armando De Ossorio (the Blind Dead films) and Jorge Grau (Living Dead at Manchester Morgue is a particular favourite). I love the beautiful women, the sleazy men, the beautiful vistas, the crazy stories and the flat-out, nutty violence!


Panic Beats tells of Paul Marnac (Paul Naschy) who is moving to the countryside with his wife Geneviève (Julia Saly) for the quiet life where hopefully she can survive her debilitating heart condition…. but does Paul, who married into money when they wed, want her to survive? Has he perhaps enlisted the help of a bloodthirsty young woman to help him in his quest and is there supernatural elements at play here?


Mysogynistic? Possibly. Sexist? Definitely! Trashy? 100%!!! Entertaining? Yes, but this is a slower one, but once the accelerator is pushed about three quarters through the film, boy, does it take off! It does, however, get a little over-complicated with all the double dealing and back-stabbing. It’s not the greatest Spanish horror film by a long shot, but there is enough intrigue and nudity to keep you interested.

Score: ***


Format: The reviewed copy of Panic Beats was the Mondo Macabro multi-region DVD, which runs for approximately 92 minutes and is presented in a pretty good 1.78:1 image and the audio is presented in Dolby digital 2.0, but in Spanish so you’ll have to turn of the subtitles!

Score: ***1/2

Extras: A cool bunch of extras on this disc:

Blood & Sand is a 20 odd minute doco about Spanish horror films, with a slant towards Naschy! It’s informative and quite tongue in cheek and features a groovy soundtrack and interviews with directors José Ramòn Larraz, Armando de Ossorio, Paul Naschy, Jorge Grau, producer Daniel Lesouer, and actors Orchedea de Santis, Caroline Monroe and Daniela Giordano. It’s one of those ‘shopping list’ dodos where you discover a film you may not have yet seen, but immediately need to track down. There’s also a cavalcade of stills and promo material throughout the doco.

Featurette: Paul Naschy on… sees Naschy talk about various aspects of his life, and his life’s work. It’s an interesting interview with him.

There is a stills gallery, but I initially liked this one as it has photos from the opening night of the film’s release, then it just sinks into photos of the film.

The last extra is a title list from Mondo Macabro.

There is also a credits list for the DVD which I find amusing as it is one of the worst menus I have ever seen! Most of the time the options can’t even be read whilst the flames flicker over them.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: I love Eurotrash horror, and this being a Naschy film means I’ll give it another go, despite it’s awkward pacing.