Giallo Pudding: MADNESS (1994) aka EYES WITHOUT A FACE

I know that anyone tuning into this website doesn't need a refresher course on Bruno Mattei. If you do, I will sum up by saying that he is a one of a kind Italian genre director who has made some wonderfully off-kilter, low-budget horror films that back in the '80s, '90s and even 2000s were frequently written off a junk and if you met another person who also liked Bruno Mattei movies, there is no stronger bond of friendship. These days with the internet providing all sorts of oddities that are amplified by social media and physical media companies releasing all sorts of things that used to be cult films in the strictest sense of the word, there are plenty of movie buffs who know Mattei's work. However, if you have only seen the films that have been released on blu-ray, you are missing some of his admittedly lesser, but none the less, entertaining movies.

Back before Dario Argento reinvented the Italian genre staple of the giallo with his "animal" trilogy that kicked off with THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMMAGE (1970), the giallo film could be a little stodgy and perhaps even dry, to some. Argento took a genre that is somewhat analogous to the British and North American mystery genre and made it stylish and exciting. This offended some purists, but was hugely successful at home and in the international marketplace. Even after Argento met his muse in Daria Nicolodi, and merged the giallo with the proto-slasher film following the success of Mario Bava's gory trendsetter, A BAY OF BLOOD (1971), there were still some folks who liked the old fashioned, more grounded gialli, where there is a puzzle to solve, the pacing is deliberate and stylistic flourishes are kept to a minimum. Who knew that Bruno Mattei would be one of them? Or maybe he was just broke and couldn't afford all of the bells and whistles. Cue Bruno spinning in his grave.

Opening with a head-to-toe black clad killer with a zip up balaclava pursuing a child at a go-kart racetrack, we quickly find out that he is not after the kid, but in fact, the child's minder, an attractive young woman who is freaking out trying to find the damn kid. Unfortunately for her, this lands her straight into the clutches of our growling, and presumably thermoplegic, killer who whips out a dual-bladed stiletto and promptly gouges out one of her eyes. Not content with that, he also smashes a bottle and uses the broken glass to stuff her eye sockets. So, yeah, this chucklehead is probably not going to get much out of a telehealth visit.

Later, at a press conference, the publishing and creative staff of a popular fumetti titled "Doctor Dark", about a professor of Paganism, moonlighting as a serial killer who collects his victim's eyeballs. A reporter named Calligari (Fausto Lombardi) of the Fox News variety, jumps to his feet and lambasts the artist Giovanna (Monica Carpanese), accusing her of actually causing the killings by producing such reprehensible entertainment. "If I had my way, I'd burn them all, all this violent subcultural trash!" To which the audience wildly applauds. Dude's probably pen pals with Tipper Gore. To pacify the audience, the publisher, Binelli, accuses them all of a "moral lynching"(!!) which, naturally, causes everyone to relax and line up for autographs. As one would expect.

Just to make things worse for the already frazzled Giovanna, police inspector Callistrati (Antonio Zequila) butts in with his own accusations that the comic is inspiring the killer, to which Giovanna replies in the calm, collected way that you would expect from an Italian, "if the killer used an electric drill, I suppose you'd take it up with Black & Decker!?" This goes on while Binelli hits on his secretary Emy (Emy Valentino), because... you know, Italians. Giovanna decides to go home, ditching her boyfriend/writer along the way, only to get a creepy phone call and finds a pair of torn out eyeballs on her mantle piece!

This leads to a surprisingly convoluted plot in which everyone is a suspect and red herrings run rampant. Surprisingly, because, aside from the opening scene with the graphic eye-gouging, this feels like an old-school giallo with a heavy emphasis on keeping the audience off-balance, constantly second guessing who might be the killer.

Much of the movie bounces around from various locations on land and sea where Giovanna is trying to escape the lurking killer while the police fumble about with almost too many clues. At the autopsy for the first victim, inspector Callistrati rants about how the killer carved out her eyes and stuck a stiletto up her nose "just like the ancient Egyptians!" Wait, so 31BC Nubians were riding around on suped up donkey's shaking down merchants with their switchblades? Were was Maurizio Merli when you needed him?

At one point Giovanni gets a call quoting her comic "In the mirror I have seen the dark side of my being and while my eyes watched it, it watched me." This is said after showing the killer get dressed infront of a surprisingly elaborate mirror set up in which the outline of the killer (with hat!) is on the mirror and some bleeding eyes are reflected in the wall on the opposite side of the mirror. Clearly the killer doesn't have a day job. We also discover that the killer is... the conservative reporter! This is a swerve that I'm pretty sure is a nod to Argento's TENEBRAE (1982). The reporter is shot by the police, at which point he wildly rolls his eyes, grins manically and says "they are all so beautiful" referring to the comics, before passing out. He manages to recover in an asylum, presumed to be the killer until the killings start again.

There is so much oddball stuff going on in this movie, I can't even begin to catalogue it all. In one bit the murderer finds the secretary Emy at work late and after a struggle manages to make her death look like the most contrived suicide ever, with her corpse slumped backwards over a table, holding a syringe in her own throat and a letter next to her body claiming to be the killer. While the police are doing their forensic duty, Giovanna and her boyfriend (who could also the be the killer) are brought into the middle of the crime scene so that Giovanna can be totally traumatized by the sight of Emy being in a state of dead. After she completely freaks out, the inspector says "You better leave this room. You might smudge prints or destroy other evidence." Why did you bring them in then? Later the inspector basically recites to the camera the entirety of the events that lead up to Emy's death as if he was reconstructing the crime in his head, at the end of this long, definitely not padding, scene he discovers that Emy wrote the killer's name on a sticky note. We know this is the identity of the killer and not just a random note to draw a co-worker's attention to something innocuous because... Emy has ink on her fingers! At which point the inspector turns to the camera and says "OH. MY. GOD." I swear this is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen and possibly made the movie worth watching all by itself.

The whole thing wraps up with a surprising (I keep using that word), rather nihilistic ending that apparently was partially cut for the Italian release. Although I was not able to get ahold of the Italian version, apparently Mattei decided to not only trim some of the grimness from the ending, but also chose to insert and replace some of the deaths in the movie with bits from A BLADE IN THE DARK (1983). Not that Mattei has never clumsily inserted mismatched footage from other films, not at all, he took the old trick of Cormanizing to a whole new level. I just can't imagine how they would fit in at all. They are extremely different and to be completely honest, what is here is fine for what it is.

Some of those British movie "experts" have gone on record lambasting this movie with their usual, "it's not high-art, therefore rubbish" attitude. I aways enjoy Kim Newman popping up on what seems like every UK special edition saying, in a sneering tone, variations of "It's enjoyable schlock, if you like that sort of thing". This serves two purposes. One, to denigrate the film in question as not being of an acceptable standard for his sophisticated tastes and two, to distance himself from the film implying that there are some subhumans who may enjoy this, but clearly not him. If you find it impossible to see the craft in LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974), why bother to be interviewed on the SE disc for the film? Troy Howarth upbraided MADNESS on several levels, one criticism being that the acting was "wooden". I honestly wonder if he has seen the film as the acting is clearly playing to the cheap seats. It's Italian actors acting like Italians. Every discussion is a shouting match, every misfortune a calamity. Giovanna's reactions to her predicaments are so wildly over the top and hysterical that it becomes pretty damn funny, but "wooden"? Nah, man. Not even close.

Is MADNESS high art? No. Is it as good as DEEP RED (1975)? Of course not. Does that mean that it is not even worth seeing? Also no. If you can enjoy Italian genre films for both the highs and the lows, there is a lot that they have to offer and you will be rewarded. This is particularly rewarding if you enjoy getting in the weeds on a particular genre, or a particular director, or both. I still have a few more obscure, what appear to be SOV non-horror, Mattei movies to check off my list, but this is such an odd entry in his career that it is interesting and surprisingly entertaining. If nothing else, it moves along at a fast enough pace and throws enough weird stuff at the wall that it's never boring.