I’m pretty sure Fatal Frames was the first new giallo I saw, after working myself through the films of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino and so on. So Fatal Frames was - believe or not - a very important turning point for me - I realized there was new thrillers from Italy and I had to find them all. I’m still searching for a few, but most of them have been memorized in my brain by now. Fatal Frames got a lot of slack when it came, and it deserves it. But what it doesn’t serve is the hate, because if you don’t have a heart of stone this film is impossible to dislike.
Alex Ritt (Rick Gianasi) is a hunky Fabio-like music video director in New York. His girlfriend have been killed by the notorious Video Killer, who always films his deeds and sends the tape to the police afterwards. To think of something else (which is hard because he deliberately kept her bloodstain in the apartment carpet to never forget about her) he accepts the exclusive duty to direct Italian superstar (that’s the general idea of the movie, not my opinion) Stefania Stella’s new music video! He gladly accepts, but soon finds himself in peril when people around him in Rome starts to die by the hands of… the Video Killer! Who can the killer be? And why is Donald Pleasance wandering around planlessly doing nothing?
Lets get to the point with every damn review out there, including mine: Fatal Frames is stupid! Stupid!! STUPID!!! With that out of the way; it’s also a nearby-genius slice of nineties Italiana and delivers the wackiest entertainment since… wait a minute here?! Wasn’t Fatal Frames the first Birdemic and The Room? It was generally known that it was considered a bad movie but also very entertaining. Synapse Films was - I think so far - the only distributor to take the movie under its wings and make it accessible to the general public...because it was bad and crazy and the makes of it, Al Festa and Stefania Stella, wasn’t aware of the badness of it.
But I can’t agree Fatal Frames is bad. It think it’s mega-super-duper-explosion-stupid and overlong (over fucking two hours!) but have so many showstoppers - from odd cameos by old genre actors like Angus Scrimm, Donald Pleasance (who died during the production and replaced with a guy in a Donald Pleasence-mask) and Alida Valli to a all-over-the-map performance by the always awesome David Warbeck as the detective in charge of solving the killings. Fatal Frames proudly uses every famous location in Rome, splashes everything in the colors of the rainbow, shamelessly plugs Stefania Stella’s own music with tasteless and very Italian music video clips.
And. It’s. Brilliant.
Come on! The reason why you love this one as Troll 2 is that it’s made with passion, heart and a lot of fun. Even if Fatal Frames is at least 30 minutes too long (no kill your darlings here!) it also looks so gorgeous, uses every kind of camera movement in the music video book, put together with awkward editing and Stefania Stella’s acting. Oh boy, if you haven’t experienced Stella on film you haven’t seen film at all. Curly black hair, big lips and boobs, lousy acting and terribly, terrible songs. But still, you love her! Maybe because she’s so unaware of what the hell she’s doing or that she have some kind of charisma. But she’s also one of the persons behind Fatal Frames and considering the production value they got out of what I guess is quite a small budget it’s an impressive work she’s been doing. Even if it’s just to sell herself to an unsuspecting audience!
But I need to admit I think the ending is semi-suck. So beware. It kinda takes away the power from some of the earlier scenes also, something you’ll understand when you see it. But outside of that, it’s quite gory and with well-made effects. Also notice the at times very odd sound mix, which at one point switches places on the telephone voice-effect and a normal room-voice during a conversation. But why?
Fatal Frames is one of a kind, that’s for sure. A Birdemic or The Room of it’s time but still a lot better as a movie. I would gladly - you hear that distributors - upgrade to a blu-ray, or even an anamorphic DVD, of this title. It’s almost more entertainment than most of us can handle, but if you live to see it all the way through you won’t regret it.
Recent Comments