L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone, aka The Killer Reserved Nine Seats
Italy, 1974
Directed by Giuseppe Bennati
Written by Giuseppe Bennati, Paolo Levi and Biagio Proietti
Cast: Chris Avram, Rosanna Schiaffino, Howard Ross, Paola Senatore, Eva Czemerys, Janet Agren, Lucretia Love, Gaetano Russo, Andrea Scotti, Eduardo Filipone
Label - Camera Obscura
Release Date - June 26, 2014
Running Time - 1.43.31
Aspect Ratio - 1.85:1
Video - 1080p, AVC
Audio - Italian, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono
Subtitles - German, English
Region Code - B
The Movie
A group of people led by wealthy Patrick Devenant arrive to an ancient
theater in the middle of the night to continue the party they were having at
Patrick's place. Among the guests are mostly Patrick's relatives, his fiancée
and daughter and friends. Also a stranger who claims he knows everything about
the theater. But the problem is that no one really knows who that stranger is.
The theater has been owned by the Devenant family for centuries. It's been
abandoned for the last 100 years. Soon the stranger disappears and a black gloved
hand cuts a rope holding a big wooden beam to crush Patrick. Fortunately for
the man the beam misses its target. Patrick gathers the group together to tell
them someone has just tried to kill him. But someone locks all the doors
trapping the group inside the theater and a crazed masked man starts killing
off the cast one by one. As the killings go on Patrick remembers the legend
about the curse on his family: Every 100 years on the 15th of February in this
theater a group of people is killed. Also there's a picture showing various
methods of killings and the maniac follows that picture very closely. Who is
that killer? Someone from Patrick's relatives? Or maybe one of his friends? Or
maybe the mysterious stranger? Or maybe someone from the netherworld?
Shot in 1974 by Giuseppe Bennati, L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone
is a very good but weird giallo. By that time the giallo genre was slowly dying
off. Giuseppe Benatti wasn't a very well-known director. Before L'assassino he
made a couple of films in the 50's and 60's. L'assassino was his last movie. As
I said L'assassino is a weird giallo. It starts as a routine giallo but soon
gets supernatural touches. The plot is simple and is a variation of Agatha
Cristie's "Ten Little Indians" or "And Then There Were
None" if you prefer this title - ten people arrive to an island and are
killed one by one. In the movie there are 9 people related to each other and
everyone has their own motives to kill. We get back stories of all the
characters except the stranger, plus a lot of red herrings to keep us busy
guessing who the killer might be. At the same time there are questions that
weren't answered. Whose voices we were listening from the stage? Why those
voices couldn't be recorded? Who was that stranger and who opened the doors of
the theater in the morning? As you can see, there's not much logic in this
movie but we don't love Eurohorror and gialli for logic, do we? We have all the
giallo ingredients, beautiful babes, who don't think twice to get naked,
lesbians of course, a masked killer. Also some incest. Heavy on atmosphere and
light on gore although we get one very gruesome scene, L'assassino ha riservato
nove poltrone is a beautifully filmed movie. The ancient theater is beautiful,
the scenes in the crypt remind me of the gothic movies of the 60's. The cast is
great as well. It is an excellent giallo with
touches of gothic and supernatural. Very highly recommended.
Video
L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone arrives on a 50GB dual layer Blu-ray
disc. Encoded in 1080p AVC, the 1.85:1 framed picture looks absolutely
fantastic. It was a very obscure and
hard to find title. For years it was available on bootleg VHS and VHS-to-DVD
releases, with horrendous image quality. Last year Camera Obscura went HD with
this stunning release. Colors look very natural, black level is very strong, no
contrast boost. The grain looks very filmic, no traces of DNR and edge
enhancement. It was a revelation to watch this release after those murky
bootlegs.
Audio
We get two audio options: Italian and English DTS-HD Master Audio in
Mono. Optional German and English subtitles are included too. Both audio tracks
are well balanced and sound fine and are easy to follow. No issues here. The
English subtitles are easy to read.
Please note that there are some scenes for which no English audio was
dubbed. Those scenes are presented in Italian with optional German or English
subtitles.
Extras
Camera Obscura provided the following extras for this release:
Audio commentary with Marcus Stiglegger and Kai Naumann. It's in
German but Camera Obscura provided English subtitles for it. As usual Marcus
and Kai give us a lot of useful information on the film’s background, cast
etc.
Interview with Howard Ross - In this 8 minute interview, the actor talks
about the cast, the director and the main location of the movie, Fabriano
Theater.
Interview with Biagio Proietti - the interview runs for 28 minutes
and he talks about his career and L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone.
Picture gallery.
Italian and English trailers for the film.
A very interesting and informative booklet is inside the packaging.
Final Thoughts
L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone is Camera Obscura's first release
on Blu-ray. Camera Obscura saved it from obscurity by releasing this impressive
edition. I'd easily include this Blu-ray in the top 10 genre releases of 2014!
If only all the labels would work like Camera Obscura. Wonderful HD debut from
one of the best labels specializing in Italian genre cinema.
No comments:
Post a Comment