Amuck!

The first time I can say that I really liked a Giallo. Barbara Bouchet must be one of the most beautiful women to be shot on screen. Her slow motion lesbian scene with Rosalba Neri to Teo Usuelli's dreamy background score makes this film worth watching. Another lesbian scene under a waterfall was also terrific. The hunting scene where a paranoid Barbara Bouchet runs around like a scared rabbit was well edited. The plot, suspense and resolutions are all quite banal. But the beautiful women, the excellent score and the locales made me like this film. Farley Granger looked quite creepy i guess. (7.5/10)

Amuck! is a great title, but this is a movie that has a ton of great other titles –Alla ricerca del piacere (In Pursuit of Pleasure), Maniac Mansion, Leather and Whips and Hot Bed of Sex were also used and the working titles were Replica de un delitto (Repetition of a Crime) and Il passo dell'assassino(Footsteps of the Killer). No matter what name you give it, this is one dark little film. Greta (Barbara Bouchet, who next to Edwige Fenech could be considered the queen of the giallo thanks to turns in Don't Torture a Duckling and The Red Queen Kills Seven Times ) is an American abroad, working as the secretary to Richard Stuart (Farley Granger, So Sweet, So Dead and What Have They Done to Your Daughters?). Along with his wife Eleanora (Rosalba Neri, Lady Frankenstein), the writer lives in comfort on his own island. Their past secretary, Sally, disappeared without a trace. However, Richard and Eleanora don't know Greta's reason for joining them — the missing girl was her lover, a fact we find out via a flashback lovemaking scene that is artful, if stilted, awkward and the way that men would assume women would couple (staring at one another and attempting to kiss, then going to sleep). Indeed, it feels like the fever addled wet dream of a maniac, which pretty much sums up what giallo can be at times. The more Greta gets close, the more sex, drugs and violence is unearthed. The Stuarts often hold sex parties in their palatial home. Oh yeah — Eleanora has ESP, seeing Great's death, screaming about it while in a fit of prophecy. Indeed, death begins to follow our heroine. The next day, a hunting trip turns into a brush with quicksand, that most evil of all movie doom. Richard reveals that Eleanora fascinates him because of her duplicitous nature and he is falling in love with Greta because of how honest she is. He then reveals the accident that claimed Sally's life in a flashback: Eleanora watches Rocco through her hunting scope before inviting him to a rendezvous with her and Sally. They both dance for him in a series of druggy jump cuts — perhaps the film's most assured scene. After making love to Eleanora, the fisherman kisses Sally tenderly before losing control, which is shown by how the film speeds up, like the Keystone Kops. He ends up choking Sally to death while Eleanora watches, powerless to stop him. Richard and Greta end up making love later that night during a storm. Eleanora watches through the doorway before looking directly at the camera, as if she is sad yet not surprised.

Arriving at a secluded island house, a woman's guise of becoming a secretary to a charmingly reclusive writer in order to find her missing lover brings her into contact with his series of sadistic sex games and tries to put a stop to it before she falls victim to them. This here is easily one of the greatest trashy Gialli's ever made. Among the great parts here is the fact that this one absolutely revels in the aura of perversion and decadence without making it feel like a degrading effort to be so free-wheeling with it's sleazy trappings. From the beginning where it showcases the sex party with all the friends hanging around groping each other that brings her into the proceedings only to then have the * party-goers watch a pornographic version of a popular fairy-tale that features all sorts of drug-use amongst the viewers while the sexual shenanigans play out on-screen, to the flashback scenes of the lesbians frolicking in the waterfall or the numerous changing scenes where they are watched with another person in the room with them all give this a somewhat sleazy and perverse feel. Still, none more than anything else here that spells this out than the utterly erotic and sensual lesbian encounter that works on numerous levels, with the slow-motion photography of the sequence showing off their slinky, writhing bodies in great detail but also getting a chance to have the two performers themselves for one such sequence makes for a truly compelling situation just on that factor alone and makes the scene even more worthwhile than it would otherwise be. There's even more eye-candy featured here with the rather copious scenes at the end where they feature the revelation of the victim's fate through the use of a sex-game-gone-wrong which is then replayed again as the true finale which is quite nice overall and manages to fully complete the trashy atmosphere and aesthetic featured here. Another strong feature here is the film's few admittedly fun and engaging action scenes, which are quite nicely put here to remind this one of the rather fun giallo trappings that are present here with the rather thrilling chase out in the swamp-lands where they believe the two are shooting at them and manage to stumble into quicksand without realizing due to trying to avoid the shooters. It's a great scene, as well as the fun stalking accomplished at the house when she believes the killers are trailing her in the basement and is forced to hide which is a rather enjoyable scene. Overall these here are enough to hold this one up over it's few minor flaws. The main issue here is the fact that there's nothing said about why the police would authorize the kind of investigation attempted here, being that there's far more realistic efforts that could've been attempted, so there's little offered as for why try this one. As well, the plot does stumble here somewhat without the typical body- count on display, as there's only a few minor action scenes here and a low kill-score so there's some stumbling blocks here in that regard. Otherwise, this one here is one of the more enjoyable efforts in the style. Rated R: Continuous Nudity, numerous sexual encounters including lesbian frolicking, several rape attempts, Violence, Language, drug use and scenes of animal hunting aftermath.

Returning to view this film again after a gap of a few years I find I like it much more the second time around. It begins quietly as Barbara Bouchet is introduced to the Venetian villa of Rosalba Neri and Farley Granger. The rather washed out pan and scan print derived from video sources is not good but seems to be all there is and can soon be forgiven as the tense and vivid action develops. Granger is excellent, far better than I've seen him in other films of this period and of course he is ably supported by the lovely and sexy Bouchet and the beautiful Neri. The twisted story always makes sense, remarkably enough, and there is no shying away from the fact that this is steeped in an aura of sex and drugs and.....well maybe not rock 'n' roll, but an occasionally most effective score. Nudity is rampant throughout and whilst some of the sex scenes are gentle and consensual, some are most certainly not. There are also some marvellous sequences relating to past events, that take us out onto a very atmospheric lagoon and to a druggy party gone wrong. There is violence but not much in the way of gore, just more nudity instead. I don't recall a film when so many gorgeous costumes were worn and that came off so easily. Very effective and sleazy giallo.

Once seen, the myriad illicit charms of Silvio Amadio's fabulously fleshly Giallo 'Amuck' are not readily forgotten, as it vividly remains a triumphantly trashy, smoulderingly Sapphic Italian exploitation classic. A singularly uninhibited Giallo, generously endowed with inventive intrigue and sublimely sinister cat and mouse machinations, starring the dangerously alluring feline Rosalba Neri and her flaxen-haired quarry, the glamorous Gialli ubiquity Barbara Bouchet, both indulging in an especially flavoursome slow-mo sequence of unadulterated erotica in Amadio's darkly dissipated, wildly entertaining, drug-fuelled delirium! Amongst all the hyper-lurid, crotch-swelling goings on, the talented film-maker still manages to generate some deliciously atypical Giallo-Gothic atmospherics; his menacing mise-en-scene assisted greatly by the despicable degeneracy occurring within the decaying, wonderfully decadent, mildewed majesty of Venice. And it would be entirely remiss of me if I forgot to mention maestro Teo Usuelli's suitably sensual, euro-lounge, shunt-funk soundtrack that adds an excitingly voluptuous veneer to the increasingly intense, psychologically skewed, head-scratchingly sinister goings on within the hatefully hedonistic household of intellectually twisted, wantonly perverse bourgeois writer Richard Stuart (Farley Granger). 'Amuck' is an exquisite exemplar of stylish, sweaty-palmed euro sleaze, electrified by the scintillating presence of Italian Sinema's most intoxicating, skin-prickingly perky screen sirens Rosalba Neri and Barbara Bouchet.

This is one of the better-known giallo titles, if mainly for the presence of two of the more luscious "Euro-Cult" starlets – blonde Barbara Bouchet (whom I saw, still looking good, quite a few times at the Italian B-movie retrospective held during the 2004 Venice Film Festival!) and brunette Rosalba Neri – in perhaps their role of greatest significance; it goes without saying, then, that the film's piece de resistance is their celebrated slow-motion love scene (which actually occurs very early into the proceedings)! With a generic if definitely attention-grabbing moniker that has no direct bearing on the plot, the movie has been given many an alternate title – such as MURDER MANSION and HOT BED OF SEX, depending on which aspect the respective distributors chose to spotlight (for the record, the Italian original translates to IN THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE); incidentally, the English-dubbed and regrettably panned-and-scanned VHS-sourced copy (as a result proving soft and occasionally battered) I watched boasted no credits apart from the names of the picture itself, Bouchet and leading man Farley Granger! By the way, the film marked the second of three giallos the American star appeared in back-to-back (I watched the others, which I quite liked, only a few days ago) but, though I felt he delivered surprisingly committed performances in all of them, once again this one afforded him the meatiest characterization. Having said that, it makes for a good transition between SOMETHING CREEPING IN THE DARK (1971) and SO SWEET, SO DEAD (1972) – featuring elements from each, specifically the old dark house setting and a high sleaze factor respectively! The premise is simple enough, with heroine Bouchet insinuating herself into the Venetian household of renowned novelist Granger and his much younger wife Neri, in order (unbeknownst to them) to probe into the disappearance of their secretary – her colleague/flatmate/lover!; it transpires that the outwardly respectable wealthy couple leads a libertine existence, given to stag parties fuelled by drug-taking and the exhibition of snuff movies: starting to involve a dim-witted brute in their exploits, one day things turn sour and it is the secretary who gets the short end of the stick (no pun intended)! The local Police are aware of Bouchet's undercover 'mission' but, soon enough, she realizes that her employer is too – since the plot of his new novel begins to parallel the events that had taken place in the house and, more importantly, indicate what her own fate will be (a blackmailing servant is similarly gotten out of the way)! To further muddle the waters, Granger pretends to fall for Bouchet (thus getting a piece of the action himself for once!) – in fact, two of the film's highlights involve the depictions (via flashback confessions) of the former secretary's death and the disposing of the body; another – this time around a recollection by Bouchet – is a skinny-dipping episode (which goes a bit beyond that) involving her and the murdered girl, and yet one memorable sequence is the climax (planned to be a reprise of the secretary's unlucky demise, the tables are smoothly turned on the perpetrators: Bouchet had met the couple's unwitting associate during a chance but cringe-inducing encounter where he, a fisherman, had nonchalantly flayed a live eel in front of her and she even treated his injured finger!). As was often the case with the "Euro-Cult" style, one of the lasting ingredients here is Teo Usuelli's score which is versatile enough to suit the film's many changes of mood.

source: Amuck

Moviecut—Amuck

Alla ricerca del piacere

Young, beautiful Greta Franklin (Barbara Bouchet) takes a secretarial job for Author Richard Stuart (Farley Granger). This is a way for her to do some sleuthing in order to find out what happened to a friend named Sally (Patrizia Viotti). Greta soon encounters Stuart's alluring wife Eleanora (Rosalba Neri). AMUCK is a wonderful giallo filled with mystery and suspense. It also boasts the aforementioned female cast, resulting in sheer magic! That is, unless the thought of love scenes -in slow motion!- between Ms.' Bouchet and Neri repels you! There's a heavenly amount of frolicking in this movie. We do get back to the whole lost friend thing. Eventually...