Specters
Italy
1987. Director: Marcello Avallone
Cast:
John Pepper, Donald Pleasence, Massimo de Rossi
Aka: Spettri
As expected Donald Pleasence plays his usual
oddball, the one he always played, here masquerading as an archaeologist
discovering mysterious, previously unknown catacombs under the Maussoleum
in the city of Rome. As always in these types of films, you can't do
such a thing without unleashing evil forces upon mankind. Is this the
end of the world as we know it? Will Donald Pleasence make it to the
end?
Specters is very well produced, with atmospheric photography and plenty of set-pieces to match. It may not be up to par with director Avallone's subsequent masterpiece Maya, but it's still more exciting than everything Lucio Fulci could muster around this period. Storywise it may be a bit out of focus at times with too many sub-plots hanging around loose, but that's what one can expect from a script co-written by Dardano Sacchetti, an expert extraordinaire in foggy plots (The Beyond etc). Although once the steady-cam and fx-operators get their stuff going you can almost forget about the silly plot and that you have seen it all before in Demons. You can safely pick up that cheap copy thay you've seen lying around at the flea-market for years. For Scandinavian buffs, the film also offers as a bonus the presence of former Miss Denmark, Katrine Michelsen.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.