A one day festival by the Frightfest people had this film as its climax and raison d'etre. The first of three films was a poor riff on 'Cannibal Holocaust'
entitled 'Welcome to the Jungle' with the action shown from the viewpoint of
one of two video cameras which mean that the gore was extremely limited and a lot of the shots were jumpy. The story line of two recently met pairs
going in search of Michael Rockefeller who disappeared some 40 years earlier
is far-fetched and overall this was a waste of time and, presumably, limited
funds. The second film was 'Storm Warning' which was better than I remembered from last summer, possibly less cuts, but the idea of two very
intelligent people getting themselves lost as happens is rather hard to take -
though without this the subsequent escalation of violence would not have
happened.
The Argento film is the completion of the trilogy begun with 'Suspiria' and it
does remind one of the excellent eye for striking images the director has.
The story makes as much sense as that of most of his films and the presence
of Udo Kier in a small role, his daughter Asia and her mother, Daria Nicolodi,
provide a reasonable level of acting. Many of the set pieces are imaginative
but, all in all, this is a minor example of what Argento has done. One
question which I suppoe will remain unanswered - what went through both
his mind and his daughter's in the somewhat unnecessary and lingering shot
of her nude body in the shower?
All in all, on what was a rather cold day (and an unheated cinema), I think I
would rather have stayed home - even the dinner at Bertorelli's afterwards
did not impress!