Well, he's sure as Hecks gone and done it this time, alright! Never one to spit in the wind and get hit by it, our good friend Arbogast, who lives just a link-click away at ARBOGAST ON FILM, makes up for his cessation of posting comments here at DESTRUCTIBLE MAN and makes us feel loved again with his be-all-end-all examination of the totally batty dummy-death in Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY. This was written exclusively for our DESTRUCTIBLE BLOG-A-THON.1 and is quite an effort indeed!
By all means, flap your befurred airfoils over to Arbo's roost and fly headlong into into a uniquely Arbo-plectic elegy to the "Fat Bat" in cinema and then some! Post-haste!
Many thanks to the Fat Bat-tard in attendance for taking the time to think of his baby Brothers Maciste and making sure that we can all Arbo-gasmically take the dumm out of dummies!
...and one of the girl's outwardly square, socially upstanding mother and father, initially antagonistic towards each other, turn their mutually repressed sexual frustrations outward and transform into remorseless, vengeful killers against those responsible for their daughter's murder.
The very nature of the film is a subterfuge unto itself. Director Aldo Lado claims themes of a deceptively evil bourgeoisie manipulating the lower class into doing it's baneful handiwork --
-- a perfectly acceptable rationalization by an intelligent director who needs to validate his involvement with a project whose commercial intentions demand a copy of Wes Craven's wildly successful LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) for the European market.
He certainly fulfills his chores nicely --
-- the characters are graphically debased and tortured for the lower class audience's entertainment and the bourgeoisie audience is shamed for observing while simultaneously applauding Lado's critical social statement. Job well done.
Of course, Lado's characters aren't the only ones whose innocence and dignity have been desecrated -- the director manages his most ingenious strike against actor and audience alike by transforming the young actresses portraying the tragic victims into full-blown mannequins as both characters are chucked from the moving train by their vicious captors.
At once, an end to the tragic spectacle of savagery for the characters and a literal underscoring of the dehumanization both actresses of said spectacle must endure and live with for the rest of their actual lives.
Well, he's sure as Hecks gone and done it this time, alright! Never one to spit in the wind and get hit by it, our good friend Arbogast, who lives just a link-click away at ARBOGAST ON FILM, makes up for his cessation of posting comments here at DESTRUCTIBLE MAN and makes us feel loved again with his be-all-end-all examination of the totally batty dummy-death in Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY. This was written exclusively for our DESTRUCTIBLE BLOG-A-THON.1 and is quite an effort indeed!
