'Masters of Italian Horror' Looks a Little More Substantial Now.

Announced a couple of weeks back, never looked more than speculative, until things begin now to get firmer with the naming of the Directors involved, and their planned projects.

But there's a couple of contradictions clear from the announcement of the project and some of the words spoken by those now chosen as Directors of the projects. Firstly, there's an intention to tie it to the 'Master of Horror' TV Series from (essentially) America (well, not Italy, apart from Dario Argento : you get what I mean...) - by name mainly, in order to draw attention to the films, and perhaps to gain extra funding or distribution in America or elsewhere? - and there's an intention to contradict this by saying these are films for the cinema and not TV, so the content will be more cinematic because the limitations aren't so clearly there. A situation of 'better the devil you know', perhaps.

Okay, so Takashi Miike's 'Imprint' will appear on DVD, along with all the others, as was always the plan, but the Italian series aims for Cinema primarily. Secondly, the press release clearly mentions "Tarantino likes this kind of film, he is influenced by them" (though not necessarily in those words) so they're looking to Midas Touch of putting something similar to the QT name on the sleeve. Compromise again? Fine, as long as the films are good.

NoShame, this project has your name written all over it.

What do we get then? New films by a few legends of varying reputation, with already clear quality variations also in their back catalogue. Umberto Lenzi gives us 'Horror Baby' which has that taste of controversy in the shape of a young lead in a very adult film (it's about disabled child serial killer), Lamberto Bava will give a modern giallo in the shape of 'Murder House', and Sergio Martino gives us 'The Corners of the Night' which is set in a spooky house. Fine, so there's always an overlap from familiar ground to (hopefully) new ideas. Glad to see more new Italian movies in this ilk, if it all goes ahead, and the choices look fine.

Oh, and the newcomer is Nicola Rondolina with her film 'Brotherhood'. [Source : Fangoria / Variety].