#Ovidio G. Assonitis

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Beyond The Door / The Devil Within Her (1974)

[mariocki]

Tentacoli (Tentacles, 1977)

"I always heard that octopuses don't attack humans, is that true?"

"It is. I guess he had a reason to do it."

"Is it true that the suckers on their tentacles are as deadly as the claws of a tiger?"

"Claws are nothing compared to those, Turner. Nothing."

[pierppasolini]

Beyond the Door (1974) // dir. Ovidio G. Assonitis, Roberto Piazzoli

[gatutor]

Cartel película "Poder maléfico" (Chi sei?) 1974, de Ovidio G. Assonitis, Robert Barrett.

[gotankgo]

• Madhouse (1981)

directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis (as Oliver Hellman)

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On April 27, 1977, Tentacles debuted in France.

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Madhouse (1981, dir. Ovidio G. Assonitis)

[cinemaquiles]

Copiou e fez sucesso: uma grávida possuída em "Espírito Maligno", (Beyond the door, de 1974

[moviesandmania]

BEYOND THE DOOR (1974) Reviews of Italian Exorcist rip-off

‘You will definitely quiver with fright…’ Beyond the Door is a 1974 Italian horror film about a pregnant woman who becomes possessed and is seemingly going to have the devil’s baby. Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis (Piranha II: The Spawning; Madhouse; The Visitor; Tentacles) and Robert Barrett from a screenplay co-written with an uncredited Alex Rebar (The Incredible Melting Man). Original…

[thebutcher-5]

Piraña paura

Benvenuti o bentornati sul nostro blog. Nello scorso articolo siamo tornati nel mondo del cinema e per la precisione abbiamo parlato di animazione, riprendendo la maratona delle pellicole Pixar e arrivando al loro terzo lungometraggio, Toy Story 2 – Woody e Buzz alla riscossa. Woody si prepara per andare a un campo estivo a tema cowboy con il suo padroncino Andy ma, mentre quest’ultimo sta…

[uspiria]

Beyond the Door (1974) dir. Ovidio G. Assonitis, Robert Barrett

[pierppasolini]

Beyond the Door (1974) // dir. Ovidio G. Assonitis, Roberto Piazzoli

[gatutor]

Juliet Mills "Poder maléfico" (Chi sei?) 1974, de Ovidio G. Assonitis, Robert Barrett.

[tlbodine]

Two Lesser-Known 1970s Religious Horrors

Our random dice roll gave us "1970s religious horror" this week, which would have been an extremely simple request to fill...if we weren't trying to watch something new.

There are so many wonderful options for 1970s religious horrors, including:

The Omen

Carrie

The Exorcist

The Wickerman

Alice, Sweet Alice

Don't Torture a Duckling

But we did not watch any of those this week. We picked two movies more or less at random through a combination of Googling and narrowing down what we could find streaming. Which is how we landed at...

The Sentinel (1977) is directed by Michael Winner, based on a novel by Jeffrey Konvitz. The story is about a model whose new brownstone apartment is filled with a great deal of quirky denizens who are, um, not what they appear to be.

OK, I'll just go ahead and spoil it because this movie is very not-great: They're all dead. Everybody in the movie is in hell. The apartment is a hell mouth and now she has to become the new keeper of the gateway as punishment(?) for her suicide attempt (?)

When you type it out, this sounds like it will be cool. It is not. It is a plodding, boring mess that doesn't make much logical sense. It is, however, home to some delightful cameo appearances from baby versions of not-then-famous actors like Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum, which is a treat. But overall the experience of watching this film is like watching Rosemary's Baby, but incompetent.

We watched a movie a while back from China called Rigor Mortis that is very similar to this film except substantially better in every way imaginable. Go watch that one instead.

Beyond the Door (1974), directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and Roberto Piazzoli, is an Italian-American co-production that has shlocky Italian horror fingerprints all over it. It's charming in a lot of ways, but not especially good.

The story: A man makes a pact with the devil to have his life spared if he can manage to successfully bring the Antichrist into the world. Slight complication is that the Antichrist is currently in the womb of his now-happily-married ex-girlfriend.

Interestingly, this movie got sued by The Exorcist for plagiarism, and they settled the suit, which I think is kind of surprising because while it definitely does rip off The Exorcist in places, it's also shamelessly ripping off Rosemary's Baby and The Omen and in a way that feels more like recycling tropes. Then again, the primacy of 1974 means probably these weren't tropes at that point. Still interesting to me.

This movie is...hm. It's very 1970s, and very Italian. It feels very well-worn. You have seen everything in this movie before, in better movies. But then there are some elements, like the devil's voice-over and the unintentional(?) homoeroticism that are intriguing. And then some, like the bizarrely edgy dialogue of the 10-year-old daughter, that are brow-raising. And then the ending is...uh. hm.

There's a different way to do this movie that would have been really interesting, but it's not this movie.

Both of these films were so dull that I had to go look up the titles again for this post because I immediately forgot them after watching.

[schlock-luster-video]

On May 18, 1977, Tentacles debuted in the Netherlands.

[thepeoplesmovies]

Arrow Will Be 'Gruesome' And 'Disturbing' In September

The last strands of Summer will be bidding farewell in September. Over at the cult streaming service ARROW next month, it will be ‘gruesome’ and ‘disturbing’. A mix of gritty Japanese crime drama, disturbing horror, sci-fi delirium plus both Adam Green and Ovidio G. Assonitis selects. Next month exclusively on ARROW in the UK, Vampire Clay, an outrageously entertaining horror film about clay…