: P.O.E.POETRY OF EERIE (2011) P.O.E.PROJECT OF EVIL (2012) SHOCK:MY ABSTRACTION OF DEATH (2013) HOUSE OF RAVENS aka P.O.E.PIECES OF ELDRITCH (2014) GRINDSPLOITATION 3:VIDEO NASTY (2017) P.O.E.4:THE BLACK CAT (2017) DEEP WEB XXX (2018) A TASTE OF PHOBIA (2018) ILL:FINAL CONTAGIUM (2019)
This was Cristopharo's debut as a director and the credits mention that the story is based on the true story of Sarah Roeg and her accomplice, Sebastian Rhys, on a series of murders. With this movie, that he wrote and directed, Cristopharo shows his preference for daring and uncompromising themes, since the story concerns a photographer with a traumatic childhood, who meets a charming lady in his apartment building and their mutual attraction begins. However, the hero is involved in a circuit of children pornography and morbid sex and therefore their romance grows in unexpected ways and the climax comes in a bloody finale of 'folie pour deux' (the psychological term for the condition of 'madness shared by two').
Cristopharo showcases some positive elements in his debut, which has an original screenplay and his directing skills are above the limitations of the budget and the shot-on-video format. The movie essentially fits in the so-called genre of 'arthouse horror', which is represented by films such as NEKROMANTIK from Germany, SUBSCONSCIOUS CRUELTY from Canada or VISIONS OF SUFFERING from Russia, combining extreme content with cinephile visuals and an experimental style. It includes a lot of violence, blood, nudity and sex (and that comes with hard-core scenes as well), something that he would also utilize in several of his following movies. I should also mention that the movie is in English language and later the director edited and released an extended uncut version from Tetrovideo label, that has a running time of 110 minutes and is more complete than the cut German DVD release. There is also good chemistry between the two leads, since Domiziano Arcangeli (who also produced the film) and Irena Violette (who is a gorgeous lady of Romanian descent and she also played in the vampire horror film METAMORPHOSIS in 2007) perform well together, while the Italian horror heritage is represented by veteran actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice (known for his roles in CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD-he is the guy who gets the drill in the head-, CANNIBAL FEROX, THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK and others), who has a small role. The practical effects are credited to Michael Del Rossa and the soundtrack has several opera arias. The movie mixes erotic cinema and horror in an interesting way, it was also screened in international horror festivals and is definitely worth viewing by fans of independent and experimental horror, although they should get their hands on the uncut edition of the movie.
BLOODY SIN aka ABOMINATIONS OF THE THIRD REICH (2011)
The movie starts with a sequence that unfolds in Italy's Olevano in 1474 AD and shows an interrogation by Holy Inquisition members in a castle's dungeon. The movie then jumps forward to 1974 and a group of men and women are sent by their boss for an erotic photo shoot in the same castle, which is now inhabited by a mysterious man, his bizarre mother and two servants. The photo shoot team gradually discovers the secrets of the place, since it is burdened not only by past incidents of black magic and inquisition but with subsequent inhumane medical experiments by the Nazis and soon a series of grotesque murders begins, with the answers unveiled in the film's finale.
This was Cristopharo's third feature film (following HOUSE OF FLESH MANNEQUINS and THE MUSEUM OF WONDERS) and although it is shot in English (with just some short dialogue parts in Italian), it feels like a comeback to the glorious old days of Italian genre cinema, by combining gothic horror with giallo and erotica. The story unfolds with the help of comic-style frames that remind of the CREEPSHOW films and we also see black and white sequences and some scenes with clay animation. The movie's exploitation elements are abundant and they include blood, gore and full nudity, culminating in a scene where a man has his penis cut off and a necrophiliac gangbang (man-woman-female corpse). There are also tortures done by SS officers and a scene that combines incest with gerontophilia, so we realize that the director doesn't shy away from extreme content and honors the tradition of directors like Joe D'Amato, who pioneered the genre of 'porn horror' in Italy. Part of the shooting was done on the location of a real castle in Italy and this helps the movie to have a more authentic style and surpass its budget, while the music has a variety of choices, including Carmina Burana choral passages by Carl Orff. The ladies of the cast are beautiful and Roberta Gemma steals the show here. She played later in other films by Cristopharo and she is a porn star, but she has a lot of talent and not just good looks. The movie is available on DVD.
HYDE'S SECRET NIGHTMARE (2011)
A scientist who suffers from incompetence uses the help of his assistant and a necrophile who is called...Abdul Alhazred (the name refers to the alleged by Lovecraft author of Necronomicon) to find a cure for his condition and for this purpose he conducts experiments with fresh corpses. He find a successful formula and injects it to himself and that causes his transformation into a woman with outbursts of passionate and murderous mania, while the finale explains the movie's title and also comes with a slightly supernatural twist. A police inspector tries to solve the case with the missing corpses, but he finds a tragic end, since in the story perversion has the upper hand and there is no room for redemption.
Cristopharo's fourth feature film looks technically and aesthetically better, while the running time of 122 minutes gives him enough time to unfold the story and several of his dark ideas. The screenplay is inspired by the classic novel Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by Robert Luis Stevenson, but the film unfolds in the modern era and touches other topics as well, using monologues on camera, during which the actors talk about pharmaceutical companies, animal experiments, Nazi experiments and other issues, giving the film several arthouse touches. Regarding the extreme content, the director not only does not hesitate, but he's bolder than in his previous films and we have several scenes with blood, gore, nudity and hard-core sex, including a sex club with private rooms, the nailing of a priest's penis while he is tied to a bed, teeth cutting off another man's penis (following a blow job in a car) and necrophilia in two scenes. Actor Claudio Zanelli is very good in the role of the male Hyde and Roberta Gemma is perfect as his female incarnation and proves that a porn star can possess a lot of talent, matched with a gorgeous face, amazing boobs and sexy body. I should add that the movie was shot in Italian and I found this a really good choice, while the music by Kristian Sensini is very nice and includes a variety of sounds, ranging from jazz to progressive rock. The movie is released on DVD and includes a lot of extras, while the end credits mention that it is dedicated to the late Joe D'Amato.
INTERVIEW :
When did your interest in movie-making start and what films made a big impression on you during that time? Was it Italian films or foreign films?
I must say that theater and cinema always fascinated me. I was a very lonely child and not sharing many interests with kids of my age. For example, when they wanted to play, I wanted to read... I spent lots of weekends at home (my parents had a huge mansion in the woods, where we spent our weekends) and since I was isolated there, I had time to watch many movies on TV. And most of them where classics of horror. My father also owned a super 8mm camera and for my birthday I asked for film, in order to use it. My father had the chance to find some stock of unused old film (that had expired but was still good), so he took something like fifty boxes of super 8 film. I kept them in the regrigerator for years. When I was ten, I directed my first short films with the kids of my neighbors. Of course it was childish stuff. But when I was fourteen, I made my first serious short film, with FX etc... My interest was to do special FX in horror films, not directing, so I created these short movies, full of experimental make up and something I must say is that it was surprisingly good. At the same age I became very good friends with Umberto Lenzi, on the phone. We used to talk for one hour every Friday evening. One year later he invited me on the set of one of his last movies. There we go... The magic of stage filming possessed me and from that day I did everything to turn the fate of my life in this field. I actually started working as an actor and art director, then moved to special FX make up (I worked for people like Romano Scavolini and Krisztoff Zanussi), until I moved to directing by myself.
Did you attend any film-making school and are there many film-making schools in Italy today, for people who want to learn the craft?
Oh, when I was a teen, there were only a few good schools and it was pretty impossible to be accepted in them. So, I went to a private school 30 years ago... And now I’m a teacher in it as well! It was a TV school for learning TV direction, editing and cameraman work, but it helped me alot, especially in studying analog methods. Today you have the opposite, because you can have school workshops and everything in any place. The bad thing is that often there aren't perfectly competent people to teach and the results are lot of arrogant and unprofessional students, who believe they hold the cinema world in their hands.
You made your debut with 2008's THE FLESH OF HOUSE MANNEQUINS, which mixed horror and eroticism. What memories do you have from your first movie and the whole process of writing and directing it?
Actually, that film was written five years before that year. I tried to sell it in Italy... I didn't want to be a director and my interest was to do only FX and write some screenplays for films... All my friends told me that it was a shitty script and that stuff like that would never sell nor appeal to the audience. I was pretty sad. Then, in 2007 I met actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice by coincidence and we became good friends. He (at the time) didn't even know he was a horror icon loved by people like Tarantino. He discovered this “world” with surprise and then changed his website as an actor in two halves; the “normal side” and the “dark side”. Giovanni is not only a horror star, but a very intellectual soul... He was the co-founder of an important theater and also an official translator of Shakespeare. When he read my script he told me that it was AMAZING and that he wanted be part of it. I was surprised. Therefore, I sent the script to the USA and...after five years of rejections in Italy, they approved it and produced it in in just two months. Envy and toxic competition, sadly, is a huge part of the Italian indie market.
I know that the film was later released in an extended uncut director's version. Can you tell us why this happened and what is different in that version?
Well...,it is a long story. To make it short, once the movie was completed in the editing studio and after some tests, we found out that what was legal in some countries wasn't legal in the USA and other countries. So, many of our contents where illegal here and there. Also, during that time (remember that movies like A SERBIAN FILM were released in 2012), mixing sex and horror in an extreme way was totally unusual and “new”. Audiences weren't ready. So, in order to to avoid problems with it, we ended up with the producers cutting 30% of the film and me having to substitute it with new footage filmed in 2009 (that's why this year is given on IMDB). Therefore, the released version is not only cut, but shows 30% of a totally different footage and more dialogue. Then, the label that released it closed and the only version available for a long time was the German one, which was also released on Blu-ray. But they cut almost 25 minutes from it (and I wasn't aware). So, that version circulated for years and it is a totally cut version, that furthermore is difficult to follow, because in my films violence and sex are part of the characters and the story and if you cut them, you totally cut out the meaning and the characters of the film. After ten years and thanks to TETROVIDEO, I finally restored the film, starting from the original tapes and I inserted again the original unseen footage.
Your films usually have a quite extreme content, so I am curious to ask you if you have you encountered more censorship issues with your films in Italy or other countries.
Actually, I never had problems in Italy, because I never had any releases here (besides two movies) and to be honest I didn't even have many censorship issues elsewhere, because my movies are designated for the home video market and - besides Germany - there are not so many restrictions worldwide. Furthermore, the labels that released my movies are also specializing in extreme stuff, like UNEARTHED FILMS, so no problem at all!
Ηοw about the lead actor of HOUSE OF FLESH MANNEQUINS, Domiziano Arcangeli? He seems to have a huge filmography listed on imdb and also has his own production company. Was he also a producer for the movie?
Yes, Arcangeli and I met virtually on Myspace ages ago, because we had the same first name. I knew him already because in the actors' yearbook we were the only two with this name. When I found out that he also wanted to produce stuff, I sent him the script of FLESH MANNEQUINS. He loved it immediately and he produced it. He also pushed me to direct the film, although I wasn't thinking to do it, but he said “you wrote it so perfectly that only you can do it”. And we did!
Your third feature, BLOODY SIN mixed gothic horror with giallo murders, witchcraft, nazi experiments and erotic cinema, echoing the glorious old days of Italian genre cinema. Did you use a real castle as the location of the movie?
The location in the film is actually a private home, which is half castle from the Middle Ages and half museum of modern art. What you see in the film is all real (including the Giacomo Balla and Depero paintings).
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| Roberta Gemma |
You have worked in several of your films with actress Roberta Gemma, who is a big name in the adult video industry. How did you manage to get her to work with you?
I needed an actress for nude and explicit sex scenes, but in Italy no men nor women were available to do it. So, one of the actors suggested this “pornstar” but I rejected the idea. I didn't want a pornstar but an ACTRESS. Also, I never loved the fake silicon look of the adult industry workers. But he insisted I should have a look at her and when I saw her I said OH MY GOD. We met and it was love at first sight. From that day we built a strong friendship and she also worked in many other films, revealing her talent, besides her beauty.
On HYDES SECRET NIGHTMARE you worked with a bigger budget and a running time of 122 minutes. Can you give us some more details about the movie?
Well, actually no... My big budget productions where only FLESH MANNEQUINS, MUSEUM OF WONDERS and BLOODY SIN. After BLOODY SIN, I decided that I wanted to become and independent filmmaker, because I cannot afford to work under the dictatorship of a producer (especially when the producers aren't even capable of doing their job). So actually HYDE’S, beside the MANY promises of many weirdos, was almost self-produced and with a low budget. I will also say: LOVE BUDGET. We all worked for one year and also on weekends. So, I’ll be for ever grateful to all the actors involved in it, for the time and passion and bravery they reserved for the film. It is my debut as DOP (ed.note:director of photography) and cameraman, so the movie is often not perfect, regarding that aspect. But I can say it is my first official “horror” movie. and a movie materialized in total freedom.
About the length, the director’s official cut was released on Blu-ray for first time by DARKSIDE RELEASING this year. The movie, as "porn horror", was supposed to be sold in two different channels: one with more horror and less porn for the horror market and one with more porn and less horror for the adult industry. But many problems (especially financial ones) occurred and forced the production to melt all the footage together, in an extremely complete but boring film. So, the new release presents it in the way it was supposed to be, without all the repetition of the porn parts, that actually destroyed the rhythm of the film itself.
You have also handled the special effects in most of your movies, as well as for movies of other directors (like AMERICAN GUINEA PIG:SACRIFICE). Are there any special effects schools in Italy where someone can study this art?
Not many schools, but mostly private workshops or some FX craftsmen who teach FX privately. I’m a self-taught one. I started as an assistant to one of the Giannetto de Rossi guys and he gave me a lot of advice.
Why did you choose the pseudonym Athanasius Pernath for your FX work and is there a special meaning behind it?
Because I do many things on my films, like editing, DOP, camera, costume department and FX, I don't like my name to appear everywhere and every time. That name is from a main character (an alter ego of the protagonist) from the novel GOLEM by Gustav Meyrink, a book that I love and I think that its meaning is perfect!
How about the crucial question when it comes to effects in cinema today? Do you think practical FX and make up will survive or CGI will eventually overwhelm them?
I don't care about the mainstream, because they are totally killing the horror genre. In the 80’s someone was proud to be responsible for an R-rated film, but now all the directors want their films to be mainstream and acceptable by “all”, so they make useless remakes and reboots or childish horror (like IT); I think we can forget any hopes of having important people like Fulci or Romero for a long time to come; Sadly, in the indie arena, even without a budget, many directors want to show how cool and smart they are, by presenting very boring intellectual films or how they can compete with Hollywood, by making poor indie rip offs of Hollywood. CGI is a plague and all fans of horror, the real fans, go for practical FX. Practical is more complex and expensive, but also part of the creative part in a horror movie. Without ideas and creativity, the horror film doesn't exist.
Italian genre cinema had an explosion that started from the 50's and lasted through the early 80's and covered so many film genres (peplum,horror,giallo,nazi exploitation, nunsploitation, cannibal films,zombie, possession films etc), but from the mid 80's things started to go downhill. Why do you think this happened?
This is all the fault of producers and distributors. The decline of Italian cinema wasn't only in horror, but in everything. We had great actors like Magnani, Mastroianni, Vitti... Now what do we have? Models like Bellucci, Garko and other people from talent shows. We had great directors like Fellini, Pasolini, Antonioni... What do we have now? Only comedies that are not even sold out of the Alps.
The fact is that we used to have cinema lovers and people with culture in the production/distribution fields in the past... People like Carlo Ponti or Claudio Argento or de Laurentiis. Nowadays what do we have? Their sons or banks that control the network that those people inherited by them. People with no passion, no love, no culture. They are ignorant, have a lack of taste and they think that the whole audience is like themselves. That's why we don't see people able to dare anymore. You think someone would ever produce a movie like SALO today? No.
You have participated in several anthologies (I really liked your segment MAGEIROPHOBIA for A TASTE OF PHOBIA) and some of them were Italian productions. Do you think there are new and talented filmmakers in Italy today, who can build on the legacy of Italian genre cinema, if they had more chances?
In Italy, like in every country, there are good indie filmmakers, but also lot of shit ones. Sadly, new technologies helped us as indie low-budget filmmakers to develop our productions, but also set free many “guys with a camera”, who really invaded the field, creating confusion in the audience and the critics. Too often in Italy amateur goes side by side with independent now, and this is not good. Again it is the fault of distributors, who edited these shitty films on DVD and Blu-ray, because those guys gave them for free (they will do anything, just to say “Hey, I’m a real director and this is my DVD”!). So, they prefer to get a movie for free, edit a good trailer from it and make some nice artwork and sell it, betraying the audience's trust with taglines like “the rebirth of Italian horror” or...“the most sold in Asia”. If I have to mention names, for me in Italy there are talents nowadays, like Alessandro Redaelli, Emanuele Marchetto or Lorenzo Bianchini, who really deserve a lot more respect and recognition.
You are very prolific and you have been making a lot of movies, so I am tempted to ask that regarding the budget for your films, do you prefer to work with independent producers, approach foreign investors or do you find any other ways to secure finances?
I am used to producing myself or co-produce with a few trustworthy companions in my adventures and they are always the same people, because I don't like to have unpleasant surprises anymore. We developed a sort of workshop (The Enchanted Architect) so we know how to manage little budgets in a very good way and make them look great!
One of your recent films is eROTik, which is inspired by notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. How did you come up with the idea for such a controversial story to be told and was it really shot in Turkey?
It was shot partially in Turkey and partially in Italy, because I mixed the Dahmer murders with Egyptian rituals. The film is the first of an exclusive series produced by TETROVIDEO: the TETROMANIAC series. Those films will all be inspired by real serial killers, but re-told in a creative and personal way. Next one will be 61: THE SCORECARD KILLER, dedicated to Randy Kraft and directed by me and Poison Rouge.
Another project on the table is THE SLAYING OF ROBERT BECKOWITZ, that will be made by the Albanian team Bad Trip Bros (the ones behind the movie THE OBSESSED) and it is inspired by the homonymous murder, and HOUSE SEX, inspired by the story of Australian female psychopath Katherine Knight, that will be directed again by me. There is also another co-production for the series, in Mexico: JUSTINE, inspired by the book of De Sade, and filmed by the talented Alex Hernandez. Covid-19 froze those productions for now and their process is in the middle, but we will restart as soon we can.
Your films that I have seen so far mix horror cinema and erotic cinema and also include scenes of piercing and pain fetish. Does this subject fascinate you?
No, I’m not charmed by the fetish scene, but I know what the audience often likes! Also, as people can see, I’m pretty tattooed and pierced anyway.
How about the music that you choose for your films? I notice a varierty of sounds, ranging from classical music, opera and carmina burana choir to jazz and progressive rock, with Alex Cimini credited as your main composer for some of your films.
Music is one of the most important parts in my movies. Some of them are very rich in music choices (DARK WAVES, MUSEUM OF WONDERS, RED KROKODIL), while others are really minimal (SACRIFICE, XPIATION, OBSESSED). It depends on the film's mood. I choose the composers better related to the film's mood... For example, the vintage beautiful score by Salvatore Sangiovanni and Susan Di Bona for TRANSPARENT WOMAN and MAD MACBETH, or Cimini when I want to be more “symphonic”... I must also say that his score for DARK WAVES has collected something like fifty awards worldwide until now! Another musician that I work often with is Anthony Coia (ed.note:he also runs the horror website
http://www.darkveins.com/), because he perfectly fits the recent 80’s style that I adopted for my last productions.
In your upcoming film NIGHTMARE SYMPONY with Daniele Trani, the main theme was composed by legendary Fabio Frizzi. How did you make that collaboration?
Daniele Trani is an Italian award-winning (with 2 Golden Globe awards) director of photography, but also a director. We worked many times together. We used to work for a TV series in Kosovo with the great Balcanian stars Halil Budakova and Edi Lushi. So, we decided to set up there part of a project I started the previous year with Antonio Tentori (he had worked as a screenwriter for Lucio Fulci and Joe D'Amato) and to direct it together: NIGHTMARE SYMPHONY. This film is an "hommage" to Fulci's NIGHTMARE CONCERT (aka A CAT IN THE BRAIN) and Fabio Frizzi happily joined the team, giving us his theme of the Fulci's film.
You recently participated in the virus/body horror anthology ILL:FINAL CONTAGIUM (alongside Lucio A.Rojas and Ximena Del Solar from Chile, both of whom we interviewed in Shock#46, Lorenzo Zanoni and Kai E.Bogaktzi) and, given the recent Covid-19 epidemic, do you think the movie was prophetic in a way?
Well, our virus is a sci-fi virus created by a mad scientist and it really has some devastating side effects on the human body. A similarity with the Covid-19 virus could be the fact that is spread by objects and money. In some way, we had a release of this film in the year of the virus pandemic, but besides that, there are not many similarities. New viruses show up often, just this one is very aggressive and contagious... That made it difficult to face and control.
How did you experience the Covid-19 situation in Rome (I know you had to stay home, just as we did in the rest of Europe) and why do you think Italy was hit so hard and had such a high death toll?
I’m still in quarantine now that I’m answering these questions. It's been more than one month. I’m lucky that I have a nice terrace and that the weather is warm, so I can enjoy some fresh air and sun. Many people in Italy spend time in their balconies and windows and many people talk with their neighbors now. In some ways this virus also brought some good things here: more developments in smart home-working for example, more trust in online shopping, and people have become more compassionate. In Italy, like in most countries, the virus problem was at first underestimated, so many people had the time to travel by train from North to South, before the quarantine was announced. This caused the overcrowding of stations, trains etc., helping the contagion spreading between people and arriving from the North to the South. Hospitals here are full and when I’m outside, all I hear is the ambulance sirens every five minutes.
On a more positive note, any feature film projects you are planning at the moment and you can start working on when our lives get back to normal somehow?
I have three projects to restart once the world starts to move on in a more regular way. This break was necessary, so I had the time to plan them better. Also, as a director, writer, DOP and FX artist, I decided to use this time to make a movie along with my flat-mate. It started more like a game for us, in order to let the time pass, but the results were surprisingly good, so it will be a next release from me, for sure! The story has nothing to do with the virus. It is a very 80’s style ghost story with lots of nightmares and blood! In the indie field we are used to rushing our productions, because we cannot afford more than ten days or two weeks of filming... So I’ll not easily have the opportunity again to film a movie with two scenes per day for a whole month, with no rush and with plenty of time to implement more sophisticated lighting and make up!
You can see trailers of Cristopharo's movies here : https://cristopharo.wixsite.com/domizianocristopharo. He also has his official youtube channel with trailers and showreels and you can buy his DVD from Tetrovideo's online store (https://www.tetrovideo.com/). This special and the interview were originally published in issue 51 of Shock. The reviews posted here are translated from Greek and the interview is posted in English, as it was conducted.
