6/10
Pure sleaze
15 December 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Director Mario Bianchi made some interesting movies. Kill the Poker Player AKA Creeping Death combines the Italian West with giallo. He was the director of the "Lucio Fulci Presents" films Sodoma's Ghost and The Murder Secret. Nightmare in Venice, which adapts Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle before Eyes Wide Shut. He wrote Tragic Ceremony. And he finished his career doing adult under the names Nicholas Moore, David Bird, Tony Yanker and Martin White, making movies like Sexy Killer, a remake of La Femme Nikita and The Castle of Lucretia.

Producer Gabriele Crisanti and screenwriter Piero Regnoli wanted to remake Malabimba The Malicious W**** and even brought back Mariangela Giordano, who had stopped working with Cristiani and dating him after that movie, saying that she felt "used, abused and exploited." That should tell you how far the movie went, as she had worked with the producer on movies like Giallo In Venice and Patrick Still Lives, two of the most reprehensible late 70s Italian exploitation films, not to mention her stunning scene in Burial Ground where she allows her zombie son to feed on her bare breast.

Where the original film was very sleazy, it did not go all the way into hardcore. This one goes all the way and had softcore (La Bimba di Satana) and hardcore (Orgasmo di Satana) versions.

In a remote Spanish castle, the Aguilar family is mourning the passing of Countess Maria (Marina Hedmann, who appeared in Emanuelle in America and Images in a Convent as well as adult films) whose body lies in state. The family doctor (Giancarlo Del Duca) claims that her death was from a heart attack, yet everyone thinks her husband Antonio (Aldo Sanbrell) murdered her.

Everyone has been seduced by Maria, from the doctor to Antonio's wheelchair-bound brother Ignazio (Alfonso Gaita) to the nun, Sol (Giordan) who cares for the ill uncle. The family butler Isidro (Joe Danvers) brings her spirit back into Maria's teenage daughter Mira (Jaqueline Dupré) and helps her get revenge.

Sanbrell had issues working with adult stars. In Roberto Curti's Italian Gothic Horror Films 1980-1989, he has a quote that says, "We had to shoot a love scene, Marina and I... Well, I was lying on the bed, waiting for her, and when she showed up we started making out; after a while I realized that she was doing it for real and I had to stop her." Sambrell contacted Crisanti to say that he could not work under these conditions and he was replaced in the lovemaking scenes by Gaita, who also worked in pornography.

Not to be outdone with just being outright filth, the poster also rips off Boris Vellejo's "The Vampire's Kiss."
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed