Nero veneziano (1978)

Director:

Ugo Liberatore

Writers:

Ottavio Alessi (writer)
Roberto Gandus (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 February 1978 (Italy)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery

Plot:

A blind boy receives a vision that warn him of the birth of the anti-christ. |

Plot Keywords:

Blind Boy | Vision | Earthworm | Sex | Artist

Cast

Renato Cestiè	...	Mark
Rena Niehaus	...	Christine
Yorgo Voyagis	...	Dan
Fabio Gamma	...	George
José Quaglio	...	Father Cristoforo
Ely Galleani
Angela Covello
Lorraine De Selle
Florence Barnes
Olga Karlatos	...	Magdalene
Bettine Milne	...	Grandmother
Tom Felleghy	...	Uncle Martin
Linda Larsen
Jacqueline Kluger
Francesca Bosco

Also Known As:

Blind Offer (Europe) (video title)
Damned in Venice

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Telecolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:18 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:18 | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Venice, Veneto, Italy

Some good ideas in a rather dull film

This film is often considered to be a rip off of The Omen and/or Rosemary's Baby; however, I think it's unfair to label it as such as while it does focus on similar themes and both films may well have been an influence; if you were to consider this film a rip off, then you'd pretty much have to consider every film about the birth of the anti-Christ to be a rip off of The Omen and/or Rosemary's Baby. That being said, I don't want to give Damned in Venice too much credit; as while it has some ideas of it's own, they're mostly not very good ones! As the title suggests, the film is set in Venice; although this doesn't really have a lot of influence on the plot, but it is always a nice setting. The film focuses on Mark; a blind boy who begins having strange visions that seem to point to a looming disaster. Naturally, nobody believes him; including his sister who also happens to be his carer. Even when people start dying the kid is not believed, but things take a turn for the worse again when the man from his visions turns up and impregnates his sister...

This film features a very odd brother and sister relationship, which is even worse considering the brother is blind. The brother is extremely vulnerable, and the sister (his carer) not only seems not to care, but it appears as if just spending time in the same room with this poor kid is a chore! Not that I can blame her though...he is seriously irritating. Some of the acting actually isn't bad; but the film does really suffer from some extremely poor dubbing. The brother and sister's voices especially are very irritating and it makes them difficult to care about. The main problem with the film is that it's rather boring. There certainly are some good ideas on display, but it's just too slow and the first hour especially is boring. Thankfully, the film starts to pick up a bit in the final third; although by then it is just a tad too late. We do get treated to a few good death scenes, however (one in particular that really stands out) and the final twist is fairly clever. Overall, this is not a great film by any means; it has a few good moments but not enough to warrant tracking it down.