La lama nel corpo (1966)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Elio Scardamaglia

Writers:

Ernesto Gastaldi (writer)
Luciano Martino (writer)

Release Date:

17 March 1966 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

Patients and staff of an isolated mental hospital are being killed off by a hooded maniac who stalks the halls. |

Plot Keywords:

Hospital | Murder | Based On Novel

Cast

William Berger	...	Dr. Robert Vance
Françoise Prévost	...	Claudine
Mary Young	...	Lizabeth Vance
Barbara Wilson	...	Mary
Philippe Hersent
Harriet Medin	...	Sheena (as Harriet White)
Germano Longo		(as Grant Laramy)
Massimo Righi	...	Fred (as Max Dean)
Delphi Maurin	...	Laura, Lizabeth's Sister (as Delphine Maurin)
Anna Maria Polani		(as Ann Sherman)
Rossella Bergamonti		(as Patricia Carr)
William Gold

Also Known As:

Les nuits de l'épouvante (France)
Night of Terrors
Revenge of the Living Dead
The Blade in the Body
The Murder Clinic (USA)
The Murder Society

Runtime:

USA:75 min (re-release) (1972) | USA:86 min (re-release) (1968)

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Company:

Ci. Ti. Cinematografica

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Fright Show (1985)

Good, scary atmosphere makes movie worth watching

I saw this on late night TV and fell in love with it. It starts with a great, weird opening credit sequence and contains a music score credited to "Frank Mason" that you will find yourself humming all through the rest of the movie (and maybe the rest of your life). It also has great color photography and atmospheric dark lighting which all works together to create a scary mood before the movie even gets going good. Too bad almost no one else I've met has ever heard of this film. My girlfriend and I really enjoyed it, although she got very mad at me for humming the title theme while she was trying to listen to the dialogue. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a laserdisc of this movie.

Actually it turns out the composer of the great music score is an Italian by the name of Francesco De Masi and he also did the score for the movie THE GHOST (1963). There is a scene in the beginning with a couple in bed that got cut out of the TV version even though it doesn't really show anything and in fact, I think the first murder may have been cut. Luckily, there is now a soundtrack CD but it is not officially available on DVD yet, and there are some really lousy prints floating around out there. I am not sure the Anglicized credits are imposed on the film by the American or British distributor or if the Italian production company pulled a "Riccardo Freda" and tried to make it seem like the film was made in England or America by giving the crew American-sounding names.