Delirium: Photos Of Gioia

Delirium: Photos Of Gioia Directed by Lamberto Bava. Starring Serena Grandi. (1987)

            Lamberto Bava is a filmmaker with a scattered legacy of cinematic duds and triumphs, Photos of Gioia is alittle bit of both. Possibly the dumbest film he’s ever made is Devil Fish (which I’ve only been able to sit through during MST3K). He struck ghoulish paydirt with The Demons series, which are brilliant! He’s sort of become a joke between Skunkape and I for awhile so as a gesture of “Hey he’s not such a shitty director” Mr. Ape sent me this flick in the mail.

            It’s drenched in euro trash fashion model sleaze. It’s got the same Argento influences of overly foreign actors and cheesiness, but not much blood (which would make it an overblown Italian skin flick). There are tons of photo shoot happenings in crystal blue shimmering pools at gaudy mansions in the high fashion world of PussyCat magazine! Serena Grandi is spectacular to look at and makes this dopey semi slasher film watchable. She resembles an Italian Jane Mansfield, working in a Bold & The Beautiful type soap opera atmosphere. She hangs out with Daria Nicolodi (who thankfully is dubbed), her husky voice never was able to reek havoc on the ear drums (that is until she is interviewed and had acted in Mother Of Tears, by far her dumbest role). There are tons of creative lighting and over saturation of trashy fashions (that as a red blooded American male I am unable to understand). The film is asking waay too much for a horror fan and seems geared toward late night Skinemax. It is in the catalog and Chas Balun mentions that there’s more boobs then blood.

             There is a killer loose stalking Gioia and her models. The first suspect is this pervish “Rear Window” tribute character (who totally looks like Richard Ramirez). He prank calls her and says yucky shit over the phone like I’m gonna explode on your flower!

            There is some hilarious office banter at the offices of PussyCat magazine and Gioia (Grandi) is the head entrepreneur. Her rival is a pearl necklace wearing stuck up woman, who I like to refer to as the “Shark Bitch”. She wants credit for making Gioia’s career and calls her whorey and fat. She says great dialogue like “Be careful the hate of a woman can be very bad!” She is pissed off that a former hooker like Gioia has gotten so far in the porn industry and their competition against each other reminds me of Kevin Mccarthy and Weird Al’s rivalry in UHF.

            The first victim has a giant veiny eyeball taking up have her neck and face. She looked like a Madball  or a Nightbreed monster. The killer sees his victims in different Halloween masks, but you have to guess what exactly you are looking at, it’s alarming and unintentionally funny. The cheesy wah wah guitar (score by Simon Boswell) adds more to the goofiness. The Cyclops lady’s corpse is manipulated and shot with a camera in front of a back drop of a giant half naked photo of Gioia, incriminating her.

            Serena Grandi bumps into her former boyfriend George Eastman, who looks like he just walked off the set of Iron Master. They later get it on in a soapy tub, with gratuitous boob shots. Her Richard Simmons lookalike boss walks in on them, he dresses like a combination of Michael Jackson “Thriller” era with a Bill Cosby sweater.

Sorry I ate your baby in Anthropophagus

            The second victim looks like 80’s porn star Christy Canyon, this time the photo shoot looks like two Eddie’s from Powerslave era Maiden grope her among a sci fi location. After getting getting it on with Richard Simmons look-a-like guy she gets attacked by bees. Before that happens she does a full naked strip with a bee mask on while the insects sting her to death.

Slave to the power of Vag!( sung to the tune of PowerSlave)

            A lot of bullshit happens and it drags on a lot (there’s that dull Lamberto pacing), but the killer does finally show his face and he looks like Jello Biafra wearing Robert Smith’s makeup. There are many scenes of eroticism with weird objects (knives, blue light saber) and finally everything turns out OK for Gioia. Her creepy stalker comes to her rescue and the Shark Bitch bails her out, The End. The main draw for gore fanatics is the cheesiness of watching Italian horror actors that have starred in better films and if I were twelve I would’ve been excited to stay up late and catch this naughty monster mask flick, but I guess that part of me still appreciates this kind of filth.

Nice review over at this great blog called House of Self Indulgence

Available on DVD (not sure about netflix) hopefully it will turn up on Youtube!