Touches You

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

There are at least a hundred movies featuring a psycho killer invading a horror movie set and you can't really blame filmmakers for using this overworked plot line. It promises a fitting backdrop for a horror film, plus usually gives the killer props to use, and places to hide the bodies, and naturally all of the expected 'false scares' to fill time between the gore scenes. What's always struck me as odd is how instead of showing a horror movie set as a positive place where people are having fun, most filmmakers opt to show it in a negative light and fill their films full of characters who are nasty, bitchy, egotistical, backstabbing, oversexed jerks and Primadonnas. This one's no exception to that rule, though it does try to add some additional twists to the formula, ridiculous as they may be.MASSACRE (which is "presented by" Lucio Fulci) opens with a guy in sunglasses attacking a prostitute with a hatchet and chopping off her hand before decapitating her (the goriest scene in the entire film), then immediately cuts to another woman waking up in a graveyard and stumbling into the middle of some black mass ceremony being conducted by hooded ghouls. The first murder turns out to be "real," while the second one turns out to be a scene in a movie being shot. That film's director, Frank (Maurice Poli), is fed up because he wants more realism and less fantasy, so he decides to rework the script and bring in professional psychic Irene Ullich (Anna Maria Placido) as an adviser. During a séance, Irene accidentally calls forth an evil spirit named Jack, who she claims is a dangerous spirit that likes to cut people to pieces. Thinking nothing of it, the cast and crew go back to making the film and one by one begin getting killed off in bloody ways. Leading lady Jennifer (Patrizia Falcone) conveniently happens to be dating Walter (Gino Concari) the lead detective investigating the murders. There's a rumor on set that Jennifer is a lesbian because she's friends with the lesbian assistant director Mira (Lubka Lenzi). Sleazy producer Robert Arnold (Pier Maria Cecchini) tries to capitalize on this by threatening his heavy-drinking, unfaithful wife Liza (Silvia Conti), "You have 24 hours to get that lesbian in bed with us. Otherwise pack your bags and go to the $h1+house gutter." Also along for the fun are Gordon the scriptwriter, a couple of random hookers and makeup artist Jean (Robert Egon), who is also Liza's secret lover. Veteran horror star Paul Muller has nothing to really do as an obnoxious police commissioner in three brief scenes. The best character is Adrian, a flamboyant actor and female impersonator who treats us (in full costume) to some quick impersonations of Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli and Marlene Dietrich. Don't know what that has to do with the rest of this film, but hey, I'll take what I can get.Unfortunately, the murder scenes are mostly uninspired (the same weapon is used the majority of the time) or take place completely off-screen, though there's a decent enough body count and sufficient amounts of blood and T&A for one of these things. Some pacing problems here, too, as the majority of the cast gets killed off after the one hour mark in very rushed scenes. There's also unneeded plot complication as a second killer (who is completely unrelated to what's going on on the movie set) turns up to try to throw police off. And I think they wanted the revelation of the main killer to be a surprise, but it's pretty obviously telegraphed ahead of time during the séance scene.

In case half of this film's footage looks strangely familiar, it means you watch way too much of this gory Italian cult-crap! For you see, the notorious demigod Lucio Fulci did not only produce this movie, he also took the liberty of re-using the most sadistic killing sequences in his own (and more easily traceable) "Cat in the Brain". The opening scene already, in which a prostitute is brutally decapitated with an axe, features in Fulci's later film and so do another handful of killings and sleaze moments. Andrea Bianchi's "Masssacre" fails miserably as a giallo, since the search for the sadistic killer among a movie-crew shooting a horror movie is all but compelling and suspenseful, but it's still good entertainment if you're into cheap 'n shlocky horror trash. The incoherent script introduces a whole bunch of repugnant characters who're all potential maniacs, but none of the red herrings Biachi comes up with are plausible and you can point out the killer almost immediately. Whatever remains to enjoy are the truly misogynous make-up effects and the hilariously awful acting performances of the ensemble cast. Whenever there isn't any bloodshed on screen, like between the first and second murder, "Massacre" is a slow and almost intolerable with its inane dialogs and thoroughly unexciting photography. Thankfully in the second half, there are women getting impaled on fences and males being stabbed repeatedly with rusty spikes. The music is crap and the use of filming locations is very unimaginative. My advise would be to skip this puppy and go straight for the aforementioned "Cat in the Brain". That one features ALL the great moments of "Massacre", and then some.

Massacre is a film directed by Andrea Bianchi (Burial Ground) and produced by legendary Italian horror director Lucio Fulci. Now with this mix of great talent you would think this movie would have been a true gore fest. This could not be further from that. Massacre falls right on its face as being one of the most boring slasher films I have seen come out of Italian cinema. I was actually struggling to stay awake during the film and I have never had that problem with Italian horror films.Massacre starts out with a hooker being slaughtered on the side of the road with an ax. This scene was used in Fulci's Nightmare Concert. This isn't a bad scene and it raises your expectations of the movie as being an ax wielding slaughter. Unfortuanitly, the next hour of the movie is SO boring. The movie goes on to a set of a horror film being filmed and there is a lot of character development during all these scenes but the characters in the movie are so dull and badly acted your interest starts to leak away. The last 30 minutes of the movie aren't so bad but still could have been much better. The gore in the movie was pathetic and since Fulci used most of the gore scenes in Nightmare Concert there was nothing new here. The end of the movie did leave a nice twist but there was still to much unanswered and the continuity falls right through the floor.This wasn't a very good film but for a true Italian horror freak (like myself) this movie is a must have since it is very rare. 4/10 stars

Massacre is pretty bad film, but it is not impossible to watch, but the viewer has to be Italo freak in order to sit through this. Let's make it straight: During credits and awful music, we see one pretty nasty (and dull) axe murder as a mysterious driver stops his car and kills a hooker standing by the side of the road with an axe. Then, the film begins, and NOTHING happens for next 45 minutes or so. It is sooo boring, but during the end, body count rises again and the "plot" seems to tighten. The film follows a film crew which is shooting a horror film, and soon the members start to disappear as the mystery madman with an axe or other blades kills people. Doesn't sound too original, but it does not matter when we're talking about this kind of cinema.There are unfortunately not many worth mentioning merits in this film. The music or other elements are not special and the over all look of Massacre is very dull and often stupid. But there are still few atmospheric moments in the forest and in the dark, and so we get that old feel of watching a really great Italian horror film, but this only reminds me distantly of those classics. The film could have been worse, but I must say that it should have definitely been much better! But I'm happy there are those mentioned moments, and I think that this is pretty rare title and thus collectable.I will also mention, that (almost) all the gore scenes in Massacre were used in Lucio Fulci's Un Gatto nel Cervello (aka Cat in a Brain aka Nightmare Concert), too. Many scenes from Fulci's own Quando Alice Ruppe lo Specchio (rare!) are in Nightmare Concert, too! I viewed first Nightmare Concert, and so there were no new murder scenes for me when I viewed Massacre, and it also made me feel a little frustrated. I didn't know that these scenes are in Fulci's film, even though I knew that Fulci used scenes from other films. But it doesn't matter, because Italo fans are used to be very forgiving and understanding! Fulci's mentioned Nightmare Concert is one hell of a gore fest, and the murders from Massacre fit in there well among others. So if you have already seen Un Gatto nel Cervello (akas: Nightmare Concert, Cat in a Brain) and haven't seen Massacre, then there are no new gory moments to see, but I hope that fans watch these films not only for gore or violence, because the thing I love most in Italian horror cinema is the atmosphere never matched by other countries' efforts. Massacre definitely isn't a great example of Italian mastery, but the viewing is a curiosity for fanatics and for those interested in the disturbed cinema of writer/director Andrea Bianchi, whose other merits include Malabimba and weird and wonderful (?) Zombie 3 aka Nights of Terror aka Burial Ground.Massacre earns 5/10 but only if one is as forgiving as I am, because watched as a "serious" (horror)film, Massacre fails miserably.