Will someone tell me who this man is?
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Some people pay to watch.’
We call them Patreon supporters.
‘They don’t’
They get bonus content as well.
‘I suppose some people find this sort of thing as exciting as Raquel Welch.’
I wouldn’t got that far.
We’re looking at The Dead Are Alive, which opens with an archaeological dig seeking an Etruscan temple.
Although not everyone’s a fan.
‘Damn those lousy Etruscans.’
Using a camera probe they discover a wall painting,
'This is Tuchulcha.'
This is Tuchulcha.
'He was an Etruscan demon god’
Not someone whose temple you want to break into to make out.
‘You’re so beautiful’
Let’s do it with the ancient Etruscans watching!
And inevitably.
They are beaten to death with the camera probe
and their shoes are swapped, just like in Etruscan times.
‘Why don’t you leave the Etruscans alone?’
What did they ever do to you?
Our lead is Jason Porter,
and only in Italian cinema of this era would you find a rogue archaeologist with a drinking problem,
having an affair with his ex-girlfriend, Myra, now married to a celebrity conductor.
Here I am, the coolest man in Italy, and my wife is screwing around.
Nikos Samarakis is not the nicest guy,
‘How can I work with all this incompetence around me?’
but Jason’s kind of a dick too.
‘How did you escape from your enchanted castle without the armed guard?’
nNot exactly a romantic either.
‘Doesn’t the idea of an Etruscan burial ground turn you on?’
No wonder Tuchulcha’s pissed off, people keep getting it on in his temple.
Myra’s not keen for some reason,
‘Making love in a tomb’
But…
'It's finished.'
Myra is jerk magnet.
Speaking of, Nikos is rehearsing his next show.
‘That’s enough, it’s hopeless’
'You up there, you think you're dancers, you're a herd of elephants.'
It’s all going terribly well.
And one of his dancers is the next victim.
Though the man she was with, Nikos’s son Igor, survives and is soon hitting on other women.
‘Every time I turn my back, they want to massage me. Eh, girls?’
Now, based on the title and the description on IMDB I was expecting zombie film,
demon film, some sort of horror.
By this point, I had realised this was not the case, this is a giallo film,
hence the massive emotions.
‘I get the most ghastly notions - like I wanna kill somebody!’
The mad plotline,
'What's so mad about it, it's a classic story.'
and the plethora of beautiful women, none of whom can resist the fatal allure of an Etruscan archaeologist.
Particularly Myra,
'Who is a confirmed whore, making it with everyone on site.'
Despite Jason’s previous behaviour and their history.
‘Ok, I’ve been unfair to you, I’ve been violent sometimes, I know that, I admit that.'
At its best giallo can take these ingredients and make something as good Eye in the Labyrinth,
please subscribe to see our Streaming review of that,
'You're suffering too much.'
Here, the same basic ingredients are intolerable.
‘I’ve seen worse’
Well so have I, and when this remembers that it was supposed to be somehow connected to an Etruscan demon.
‘Now you see Tuchulcha murdering murdering two young Etruscans,’
'Almost exactly who the first young couple were killed.'
It’s pretty okay.
But that’s surprisingly rarely.
The mid-section largely jettisons the archaeology for some increasingly overwrought relationship drama.
‘Look!’
Oh, could have handled that better.
Made all the worse as you realise we’re supposed to be rooting for Myra to wind up with Jason,
a man with so serious a drinking problem that he doesn’t remember stabbing her
'How could I hurt you.'
'You really don't remember do you.'
and whom the police have identified as their main suspect,
although they are very understanding.
‘Love naturally makes a man stab a woman, maybe knock her around some’
Yeah I think that was in the Italian wedding vows in the 70s
"to have to hold, to stab and to maybe knock around some"
'Let me go, what the hell are you doing'
and the police just stand and watch.
I do not accept this man as a hero.
Here he is racing to save the day.
Jackass.
Irritatingly, and somewhat bafflingly, he is unhurt and able to save Myra.
Now this is giallo, so I don’t expect it to make a lot of sense, but…
‘He discovered my secret hiding place in the gardens of the villa’
the murderer is Nikos’s son, Igor, which the film has led to in no way
and his motivation is established via a flashback to his childhood when he witnessed his mother’s infidelity.
And her shoes.
Leading him, obviously, to kill two random couples and his own girlfriend.
‘She was dirty. Like my mother. Like all women’
14 years after the event because he happened to see an Etruscan wall painting.
‘The murderer got his idea from the Etruscan painter, because he had seen the Frescos before the others.’
Beating them to death, of course , I would never have thought of that.
‘Everyone’s a joker around here and I don't feel like laughing.’
As flimsy justifications go.
Good news is there’s a gap in the market if you want to make a film about an Etruscan demon
who gets angry about couples having sex in his temple.
'The Etruscan returns and kill again.'
Thanks for watching. Please hit the like button with an archaeological camera probe.
'You're going to do what I told you and you're going to it now, understand.'
I went into this expecting something else completely, what movie titles have fooled you?
Let us know in the comments below.
'It's useless.'