Minaccia d'amore (1988)

Director:

Ruggero Deodato

Writers:

Joseph Cavara (writer)
Mary Cavara (writer)

Release Date:

10 November 1988 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

A psychic finds herself tapping into the "energy" of a deceased phone operator. She also finds that her friends soon begin dying mysteriously. An investigator determines to track down the cause. |

Plot Keywords:

Psychic | Telephone | Ghost

Cast

Charlotte Lewis	...	Jenny Cooper
Marcello Modugno	...	Riccardo
Mattia Sbragia	...	Mole
Carola Stagnaro	...	Carmen
Victor Cavallo
Carlo Monni	...	Fireman
William Berger	...	Prof. Irving Klein
Giorgio Tirabassi
Jole Silvani	...	Cleaning woman
Cesare Di Vito
Antonietta Di Vizia
Emanuela Fuin
Cyrus Elias	...	Bar owner
Fausto Lombardi	...	Cafe bartender
Monica Dorigatti	...	One of Caps' women

Also Known As:

Dial: Help (USA) (video title)
Love Threat
Ragno gelido (Italy) (working title)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Denmark:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Soundtrack:

Baby Don't Answer

DIAL: HELP (Ruggero Deodato, 1988) *1/2

This is only the fourth effort I’ve watched from this director (whom I met and found quite genial at the 2004 Venice Film Festival Italian B-movie retrospective) and also, possibly, the worst. As was the case with THE BRONX EXECUTIONER (1989), which preceded it, this is a prime example from the tail end of the Euro-Cult era – prime because it shows the depths to which the previously invigorating style had fallen by this time!

Here, in fact, we get a plot revolving around – I’m not kidding, folks – a killer phone! Pretty but bland Charlotte Lewis – in her third film after PIRATES (1986) and THE GOLDEN CHILD (1986) – is a model who, apparently, has just ended an affair; she keeps expecting her architect lover to call her back but, every time the phone rings, all she gets is static accompanied by voices from the beyond (or some such crap). She befriends a new tenant at her apartment block who, conveniently, knows of an authority on paranormal activity (William Berger) – who, hilariously, explains that the negative energy which is unleashed, say, during family arguments can manifest itself via home appliances into a deadly force (I swear I ain’t making this up)!

Among the highlights...er...lowpoints of the film are: the grumpy bartender from whose dingy place the heroine calls a couple of times (it seems that the chain-of-events can only be broken by having Lewis go through her paces again, EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962)-style!), the sheer variety of preposterous-looking phones on display, the apparatus of the heroine’s photographer friend sneaking up on her before the kill, the sarcastic cop who greets Lewis on reporting the strange occurrences (“And what’s the toaster up to, I wonder?”), the would-be rapist killed by a barrage of coins shooting out from a telephone booth, and Berger’s own bloody demise (with the phone affecting the pacemaker he’s fitted with and causing the doctor’s heart to explode)!

The film’s climax is rather confusing and, apparently, finally sees all the ‘lost souls’ inhabiting a flock of doves and flying out the window of the ‘possessed’ office (a lonelyhearts service!). For what it’s worth, the score – by ex-Goblin Claudio Simonetti no less – is effective enough, despite the inclusion of dated heavy-metal numbers on the soundtrack.