The year is 1499. When a woman is falsely accused of witchcraft, and burnt at the stake, her two daughters watch in horror. In her last moments, she curses the people and the land, and while her younger daughter is taken into custody of a baron with some outrageous manners, her older daughter vows to restore justice beyond the grave...
Phew. Ok, the opening section of "I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte" is
quite intense, but it's still only a fraction of what the movie has to
offer. It's Anthony M. Dawson aka Antonio Margheriti, it's Barbara Steele, it's Italian, it's witches, fire, castle, revenge...!
So this is a gothic horror movie, the very iconic vintage kind, set at the end of the Middle Ages. Traditional religion and folklore serve as a background for a nicely crafted story of injustice and guilt. There's not a huge amount of intellect here, as isn't too much graphic violence, but a heartfelt dark fairy-tale about morale and decency, which ends in tragedy and redemption. The visuals basically match the content: No fancy experiments, just the usual vocabulary of brick walls, spiderwebs, candles, dark hallways, secret passages, a damsel in distress, a gentleman at her side, and so on. It's not groundbreaking, but it looks and feels just perfect, moody, spooky, dark and fateful.
On top of all of this are some details in "I Lunghi Capelli..." that really raise it above off-the-shelf material. It starts with quite a bang, and from there, it works its way through the storyline, with some very decent acting by Ms. Steele, some exceptionally beautiful black-and-white picture composition (The cross and the ashes... woah!), some amazingly dynamic camera sweeps and fluent editing, some scares and some suspense, to a bone-chillingly grim conclusion.
Especially the ending section is so dark, and so beautifully directed and filmed, it is the most obvious sign that actual thought and passion went into the production of the movie. Someone really cared for this, and it pays off. "I Lunghi Capelli..." has some lengths here and there, and, obviously, it's not meant to start endless debates about human existence (or... maybe?) (no, probably not), but even in its weakest moments it's still good enough to nicely carry on, and in its best moments it's pretty spectacular and scary.
It's one of those
movies that completely delivers on its promise, easily as much as Mario
Bava's even more iconic "La Maschera Del Demonio" ("Black Sunday", 1960). You want gothic? Fasten
your seatbelt, "I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte" doesn't waste much time - it almost literally throws
you directly into the hell of a burning at the stake!
Verdict: Dark and beautiful - as solid as a 500-year-old castle! 6.5/10
Investigative reporter Emanuelle is on a mission to uncover the decadent habits of the upper class. This leads her to some first-hand experience, and some highly scandalous insight...
"Emanuelle In America" was produced in 1976, but we stick with IMDB, which lists it as 1977. This is a review of the uncut version with a runtime of 100 minutes.
Sleaze-master Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D'Amato has created some spectacularly outrageous movies, the best known of which - among horror fans - probably is "Antropophagus" ("The Grim Reaper", 1980). "Emanuelle In America" is one of his numerous erotic (?!) movies featuring Laura Gemser, and it's easily as outrageous, in several ways.
It's a low-cost exploitation-movie that borders on porn, but it has an actual story that serves as a filler and framework for the sleaze. We get to see huge amounts of bare skin and some forms of erotic (?!) interaction. In her first encounter, Emanuelle shows a remarkable degree of control, which is both just staggering and hilarious at the same time. She then goes on to work her way deeper into her subject, meets some people, takes some pictures... There is a potentially decent story about investigative journalism here, but it clearly doesn't matter very much.
So far, so sleazy-good. Slow-paced low-fi erotics with a little bit of spy-style action, or maybe the other way round. Sure, why not, it's not everyone's cup of tea, maybe just base and boring, but some level of interest by a certain audience is guaranteed, the movie delivers, and it looks and feels somewhat nice and accurate for what it is.
Until... until it doesn't. It's the oddest experience ever. One can't deny a certain intention in all of this, and a certain level of success in the execution - but, who on earth was this movie made for? So you thought "The New York Ripper" (1982) is a little weird? In terms of nasty sleaziness and sleazy nastiness it's NOTHING compared to "Emanuelle In America". Congratulations, Signore D'Amato, you win.
What makes "Emanuelle In America" so utterly disturbing is the weird detachment, the somewhat mindless, light-hearted presentation, which is strongly amplified by the prolonged slow, erotic (?!) scenes. The concept of a half-porn and half-horror movie has been explored in "Emanuelle E Gli Ultimi Cannibali", too, but in "...America" it's taken to the extreme. The soft side is predominant, by far - but what the hard side lacks in runtime, it makes up for with amplitude, shock. It's like a slap in the face when you're half asleep - definitely not a pleasant experience.
It's hard to describe without just naming some scenes, thus spoiling the entire movie, due to the simplistic and one-sided structure of it. But at the same time it's the whole point of this review: "Emanuelle In America" is really weird. It's 99% nothing too special - but the few other things in there, you're really not sure you wanna see. A horse (...) may be considered just waaay too much (...) by and for some, but it's the weird, forced placement among the other, mostly quite tolerable scenes that makes it genuinely disgusting to watch. The same goes for the extreme violence, it's just extreme (!), which alone is easily enough to turn stomachs, but it's the context, the odd placement, the lack of approach, that makes you want to just turn it off.
How do you rate a thing such as this? It's 99% of the time... well, porn, thriller, boring, something, nice, not nice, who cares... but you just can't show the other 1% to anyone. Because of the 1%, and the 99% around it.
"Emanuelle In America" has an undeniable effect, even if you think it's boring pretty much throughout, or maybe precisely because of that. It does some things that haven't been done before or after in exploitation cinema, which gives it some actual value for fans of the genre. Or, who? What genre? What is this? It sure gets a point for exploitation, boldness, and some really shocking imagery, this is not for the faint of heart! But for gorehounds and horse-lovers, that's about it, you can skip pretty much the entire movie. For everyone else, said 1% just hits waaay too hard, killing off any sense of eroticism or adventure or whatever hint of immersion may have been there. If you came for the shocks, you need a lot of patience. If you didn't, you will be seriously appalled. Either way, you kinda lose.
Obviously, "Emanuelle In America" is not to be taken seriously, it's
low-budget pulp fiction - but the dynamics are still just too odd. Even if you liked "Cannibal Holocaust" (1980), "Hostel 2" (2007), "Giallo A Venezia" (1979) and all of Jess Franco's movies, chances are you won't like "Emanuelle In America". It's very little, which is fine, but then it's just waaay too much.
Verdict: It's really a tough watch, for several reasons. 3/10
"Jurassic Park" (1993) is probably the best known of his movies, but for horror fans his appearances in "Omen III" (1981), "Possession" (1981), "In The Mouth of Madness" (1994), and "Event Horizon" (1997) are easily as iconic.
Sam Neill is one of those actors whose name you read in the cast, and you know the movie has some quality guaranteed. Both his great acting skills, and maybe even more his eclectic choice of material, earned him huge amounts of respect and cult status. He was never shy to make a complete u-turn in his image as an actor, from CIA agent to artist to the actual antichrist to family man to scientist, across action films, horror flicks, historical drama, sci-fi, war, comedy, and everything in between and beyond. What all of his appearances in movies have in common is somewhat light-footed, precise sense of the situation, a subtext that seems to play in his mind, something that transcends the mere description of the role, and gives it actual depth, rooted in human experience. A sign of a great actor, and a sophisticated character in real life.
He will be sorely missed by horror fans, niche audiences, and mainstream viewers alike.
Sam Neill in "Until The End Of The World" (1991)
Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill (Sept. 14, 1947 - July 13, 2026)
