Fatal Frames
Italy
1996. Director: Al Festa
Cast: Rick Gianasi, Stefania Stella, Linnea Quigley, David Warbeck
After his wife have fallen victim for the "video
killer" Amerian director Rick Gianisi arrives in Rome in order
to shoot a music video for pop-queen Stefania Stella. Almost as soon
as he arrives he witnesses the killing of one of his dancers, comitted
by a strange dude with a machete. Gianisi calls the cops and detective
David Warbeck arrives to investigate but they find nothing. No crime
scene, no body. It eventually turns out that the "video killer"
has also arrived in Rome and he is now sending video tapes of his killings
to the cops. Gianisi is immediately the main suspect while the tapes
keep coming.
Oh God, I don't know where to start. I don't know what to think. Fatal Frames is so much of everything, over two hours long, yet it doesn't add up to much. It took forever to complete and a couple of actors even managed to die during shooting - Rossano Brazzi and poor Donald Pleasence. It's a shame that this became their last movie because it may well also be the worst film they ever appeared in. It's certainly the cheapest. In Pleasence's last scene in the movie he calls Warbeck up on the phone and informs him that he must hurry home for Halloween, an old case have been re-opened. Very funny. If it wasn't so evident that it's not Pleasence at all in the scene, but another sorry actor with a fake bald head. I guess Al Festa made this film because he wanted to be Dario Argento, but if he keep doing stuff like this he will end up as the Italian Ed Wood instead. Everything is so cheap it's both hilarious and pathetic at the same time. In what is supposed to be a police station but looks like someone's appartment, David Warbeck sits in a dark room desperately trying to tie the story threds together. Apparently Warbecks's part was created after the deaths of Pleasence and Brazzi in order to make any sense at all of the story. No shit.
Maverick director Al Festa is previously better known for his music videos and perhaps for his musical scores to a couple of Bruno Mattei flicks (such as Robowar). He has a nice sense for style and lightning (particularly if it's blue) and it works okey sometimes, at least in the suspence scenes which takes place outside among the streets of Rome. But the whole damn movie is shot this way, making it look like some '80s MTV video mixed with a Fred Olen Ray flick or a porn flick. And we didn't really need all the footage of Stefania Stella singing her bland pop songs. Fortunately, for Festa, there's plenty of quite good splatter effects (by Steve Johnson) and the plot isn't too bad. I couldn't predict the ending, although perhaps I should have, and the steady stream of familiar faces and cameo appearences (Alida Valli, Angus Scrimm, Ciccio Ingrassia etc) help to keep your attention. Just about.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.