Monster of Blood

A cheesy, ineffectual monster-on-the-loose yarn from director Tonino Ricci, a man who can usually be relied upon to deliver the goods in a typically low-budget, untalented fashion. Although not as much a laugh riot as his later classics RUSH THE ASSASSIN and its super sequel RAGE, PANIC is nonetheless an interesting but failed attempt by the Italians to produce a British-set horror-*-science fiction thriller. In some ways the film is similar to the Spanish LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE - copious use of location filming in the UK adds to the impact and feel of the film but Ricci is not able to bring enough atmosphere to his settings as Grau did in his classic zombie film. To add to the similarities between the two films, Jose Lifante pops up again playing the fairly major part of an investigating policeman, Sergeant O'Brien, instantly recognisable with his pale visage and bulging eyeballs. The film begins with a poorly-edited accident at a science lab, where something happens to somebody. It's hard to tell what, because the editing at this point is atrocious, a flaw that is occasionally repeated throughout the movie. Later it turns out that a scientist has been exposed to a germ which turns him into an ugly mutant with a thirst for human blood. PANIC enters predictable B-movie territory as the monster stalks and slashes a variety of naked Italian females, who spend their time either making out in their cars or showering at unfortunate times. A pleasing amount of shoddy gore effects are splashed about, adding to the minimal enjoyment that the film offers. Lots of padding is taken up with scenes of government investigator David Warbeck (playing, get this, a character named Kirk Dude!) and his superiors searching uselessly for the deformed scientist, whilst some poor effects and a smoke machine behind an aeroplane try to convince us that the authorities are ready to drop a bomb on the town at any moment. Things culminate in a not-bad attack by the mutant on a cinema full of patrons watching an exceptionally bizarre film, which seems to involve a man riding back and forth on his motorbike whilst comedy music plays! Sadly Ricci ruins things by filming the actual attack in the pitch black, so all we hear are the noises. His money-making ploy doesn't pull off. The finale of the film involves the creature being cornered in the sewers whilst Warbeck and the police force close in, and there's a cheesy action finale in which Warbeck lets loose with a gas-gun. One highlight that the climax holds is the surprisingly excellent special effects used for the monster, basically a gruesome prosthetic pulsing mask which looks really nasty - kudos for the effects guys on their obviously limited budget. Entertainment spots to watch out for include the various monster attacks, plagued by overacting from the monster and its victims, and the gratuitous nudity thrown in at every opportunity. One hilarious highlight sees the police investigating growling coming from behind a bush, only to release it's only a drunk - doesn't explain why he's growling though! There's also an ultra-cheesy effects shot of a giant guinea pig living in a sewer, although the effects here are so poor that it took me a few minutes to figure out what I was supposed to be looking at. The small, B-movie cast is headed by action hero David Warbeck, in what I believe to be his first outing in an Italian horror film, and as usual he's the best thing in the film, putting in a solid performance. Janet Agren is ineffectual and has bad hair as the heroine, who inexplicably cares for the monster even whilst he's killing people, and lower down in the cast is Franco Ressel as a victim who has his legs torn off. Not one of Ricci's best movies, but a cheesy delight for bad movie lovers and a bit of a bore for everyone else.

Remember back in school when you would get a tedious math assignment like long division or multiplication and instead of actually doing the work you turned to the trusty calculator and just wrote the answer in prompting the teacher to scribble across the top of the paper in red ink "show your work please". Well, Panic/Bakterion is the personification of that scenario in movie form and much like that math assignment I turned in it too will receive a big fat F. Let's get this out of the way quickly. Yes, David Warbeck plays Captain Kirk with phasers on stunningly boring. The movie opens with two rats locked in mortal combat, an alarm sounding, and then some nameless individual screaming with green makeup on his face. This is supposedly how Professor Adams becomes Pizza the Hut or some monster that really resembles him. Another side effect of the contamination besides the resemblance of Italian cuisine is a thirst for human blood. At least this is what we are told as Kirk and the Professor's assistant Jane always manage to find the bodies after the fact. This entire film never once shows any visual "red meat" as all the kills are done either off screen or cut to another scene entirely. The monster even attacks a crowd of people in a theater watching the most mundane movie on earth (even worst than this one trust me!) before having the screen go black for some inexplicable reason. This gets old real fast. Once the attacks start to increase in regularity the town starts to "panic" or to be more accurate become slightly agitated because a cabal of secret government agent don't want the virus to spread so they quarantine the entire village. Not once does anyone show any signs of infection from contact with Professor Adams as the government is planing to go ahead with Operation Q which is the eradication of the town populace. You think this would be important yet Kirk, who is in contact with the government agents, never relays this information to them. Stoopid! Instead he hunts down the beast with a fire extinguisher. You'll get what I mean if you watch. How this movie ends is so abrupt it's downright insulting. If you must watch this awful movie at the very least skip to the last two minutes. Otherwise quarantine Panic to the island of bad cinema.

Tonino Ricci strikes again! If I described Tonino as 'a poor man's Bruno Mattei' you'd know what I mean, right? And that certainly says something about Tonino Ricci (although I will add that Tonino doesn't steal footage from other films as far as I know). I've already watched Tonino's all-over-the-place-but-great 'Night of the Sharks', and his brain damaging action flick 'Days of Hell' (which is worth a look) and clawed my eyes out while waiting for something to happen in 'Encounters in the Deep'. Here, Tonino takes on the horror genre, throws in a mutated scientist and a mutated guinea pig, sets the film in England but films most of it in Spain. David Warbreck is an MI5 agent and Janet Agren is a buddy of the scientist now growling his way around England, and they're out to stop the guy before the government nuke the town where he's on the loose. Our mutated scientist turns periodically to tear people to pieces, well, at least that's what the cops tell us as we don't see much apart from some bloodied bodies. The (suspiciously Spanish looking) army turn up to lock down the town and the residents aren't happy. Can chain-smoking Warbreck and his nifty coat, and Agren and her nifty afro sort all this nonsense out? What do you think? Tonino Ricci films are a bit of a hard slog, and although parts of Panic are good (the mutated scientist was pretty groovy), other parts just drag and drag. I thought the film was almost over and then I realised it still had an hour to go. The shots of the obviously in a hangar but supposed to be flying army plane were hilarious, as was the usual sudden ending, but, as we're talking Tonino here, everything is filmed rather flat. It's okay if you're running out of Italian films to watch. I nearly forgot - the inter-cutting of English town footage with the army driving through a town in Spain was pretty funny too.

Given some sort of bacteriological event, would things happen this way. It seems like they threw the baby out with the bathwater, deciding to exterminate a whole segment of a city in order to get rid of one random creature. He shouldn't be that hard to catch. This is bad enough, but it is filled with bad acting, unbelievable scenes, and a monster that doesn't really show himself until the very end. The young woman lead figures she can reason with this tub of goo. It does have Captain Kirk (no, not that one). Maybe that's it's main feature. The pacing is horrible and it drags one forever. Like so many of these films, it has either deteriorated or it never was filmed very well. Don't bother.

"A British research scientist is working with various forms of bacteria when he is accidentally exposed to a deadly variety due to a lab accident. The exposure transforms the scientist into a hideous, flesh-eating monster and he begins a rampage in the local community that has the government considering whether or not to destroy the entire town to contain the problem," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. David Warbeck (as Captain Kirk) and Janet Agren (as Jane Blake) are dumbed and dubbed as they try to stop a bacteria (or virus) from taking a bite out of everyone in the city. The monster, "Professor Adams", worked with Ms. Agren; so, beauty has some intuition regarding the beast. At first, people think "Professor Adams" has gone fishing; and, in a sense, he has. Some of the sewer shots, later in the film, look okay - but, it's not enough of a redeeming quality. "Bakterion" (or "Panic") is simply not a competent film. * Bakterion (1976) Tonino Ricci ~ David Warbeck, Janet Agren, Jose Lifante

A professor has been exposed to some nasty virus, and the result is a slimy, toxic, rambling cannibal monster who lives in the sewers.David Warbeck is luring around as he usually does in low-budget Italian shockers. Oh, the military has put a quarantine on the small English town where the whole thing is happening, with plans about total destruction in fear of contamination. In one scene David Warbeck ask some character "have you seen any worse actors?". -And I can only give him a honest "No!" A very slow going film with few values.

This has to rank as one of the poorest Italian genre pictures that I have sat through. It's about a virus that turns a scientist into a rotting homicidal maniac, leading to government plans to bomb the town where he is at large. Really, this is a disappointment, seeing as even Z-Grade Italian products usually succeed in at least being entertaining. Sadly Panic is not one of those films. It's pacing is awful, as it drags on and on with little development or plot structure. And to add insult to injury, there's really no tension or scares either. Another bugbear for me is the fact that this one is set in the UK, despite being an Italian production. Many Italian genre films do this but it's rarely convincing and was clearly done in an attempt to appeal to the Anglo-American market. But, frankly, sun-kissed Italian locations are just more preferable to me, so this factor just makes things even more dreary. Logic isn't a defining feature of Italian movies in general and this one is no exception. Quite why the government come to the decision to obliterate the town off the face of the planet because of the presence of a lone toxic madman is really never fully explained. Neither are the events at the beginning of the movie where the virus breaks out detailed clearly at all. A swat team is called in and we briefly see a scientist with his hands over his face covered in green goo. And that's it. It's rubbish and incomprehensible. Admittedly it seemed obvious that the version I saw was cut of violence and nudity, which hardly helped, but really that would only account for a small amount of missing material. Ultimately, the film is wrapped up in a seriously underwhelming manner too. Panic does not come recommended. It's just so shoddily put together and it's unlikely to impress too many people. The only point of interest in it is that the lead character is called Captain Kirk without even a hint of irony.

Someone hired a few names from the Italian horror field and thought that was enough for a passable thriller. Boy, were THEY wrong. Ricci screwed this up in every way imaginable. The effects looked like the were made by kindergarten kids using finger paints. And the tension was non-existent. The camera work was laughable. Hiding behind furniture does not make a scene suddenly scary. The idea itself was the only redeeming quality. And I usually like to see David Warbeck or Janet Agren. But the must have needed the money badly to include themselves in this piece of tripe. Blow this one off.

Tonino Ricci is certainly one of the worst Italian film-makers, also responsible of the terrible post-atomic romp "Rush". This one is a drwaback to "monster on campus" time : an infected scientist turns into a pizza-faced monster and terrorises (?) some bare-breasted starlets. A dubious hero tries to stop the contamination before the army nukes the whole town. In fact, the "bomber" is actually a (very) obvious model kit in front of some lava lamp impressions ! Ricci's no Argento or even Lenzi, but nobody could have done a masterpiece on such a no-budget. He did. Now, you take the same premise and turns it into a mega-bucks turkey like "Virus", and nobody is the merrier.

Panic is dreadful. I the only reason I watched it was to see David Warbeck and Janet Agren (with silly perm) and have a few laughs. Indeed the only thing one can do with a film like this is laugh. Chuckle at the attempt to match stock footage of streets in England with the streets of Spain. Roar with laughter at the cinema scene in which the lights go out and all we see is black for a good minute as the monster attacks the audience. Frown at the huge rat that makes an appearance in the sewer only to never be seen again for the rest of the film? There are so many goof in this film it is unbelievable, the best one has to be a Police Rover driving to the scene of one of the murders and the car which arrives is a Ford Cortina. Oh the pain of watching Panic, I still don't think I've fully recovered from the experience.