Paganini Horror (1989)

When a female rock band use an infamous old piece of sheet music to record their new album in an old mansion, they accidentally open a portal to hell.

Director:

Luigi Cozzi

Writers:

Luigi Cozzi (screenplay), Raimondo Del Balzo (story)

Stars:

Daria Nicolodi, Jasmine Maimone, Pascal Persiano

Cast

Cast overview:
Daria Nicolodi	...	Sylvia Hackett
Jasmine Maimone	...	Kate (as Jasmine Main)
Pascal Persiano	...	Daniel
Maria Cristina Mastrangeli	...	Lavinia
Michel Klippstein	...	Elena
Pietro Genuardi	...	Mark Singer
Luana Ravegnini	...	Rita
Roberto Giannini
Giada Cozzi	...	Sylvia as a child
Elena Pompei	...	Sylvia's mother
Perla Costantini
Donald Pleasence	...	Mr. Pickett

Storyline

The female rock and roll band formed by Kate, Elena and Rita want to release a new album, but their producer Lavinia refuses since their songs are very poor. Their friend Daniel buys a piece of music from a stranger called Mr. Pickett that explains that the music was written by Paganini himself and never released. Lavinia believes that the music will become a hit and she hires the filmmaker Mark Singer to make a videoclip in a manor she has hired from her acquaintance Sylvia Hackett. Soon Rita and Daniel disappear and the floor collapses beneath Kate that also vanishes in the hole. The survivors try to flee from the real state but they discover that they are trapped in hell.

---

Plot Keywords:

giallo | mansion | murder | knife in the chest | covered in blood | 

---

Genres:

Horror | Music

---

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 June 1989 (Italy)

Also Known As:

Melodía de horror

Filming Locations:

Venice, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fulvia Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Even though he was hired for one week, Donald Pleasence was able to shoot all his scenes in about 3 days.

---

Connections

Edited into Blood on Méliès' Moon (2016)

User Reviews

Bad dubbing, bad acting, bad for you!

While I cannot put into words how poor this movie is, I can try to put to right one thing not one reviewer so far has tried to do: Pagliani's "lost" sonata was actually a total ripoff of Electric Light Orchestra's "Twilight" from their album "Time", released in 1981 (it exists, Google it, and yes IMDb spellchecker, that IS a word).

Which leads one to wonder, considering the quality of this movie and other horrors from Italy, can Italian directors make unique original films without stealing from others? Pod People was a direct ripoff of ET (even going so far as copying the logo), War of the Planets ripped off so many sci fi movies that they actually ripped themselves off in the sequel "War of the Robots", the list goes on and on!

But a note for note clone of a popular album from a popular band from the early 80s? Really, Italy? You couldn't just use an actual obscure song from Paganini (or for that matter, anything that hasn't been played to death, we'd likely not notice)? You could have used Pagliacci and most wouldn't have noticed.